BMsAon 


DSI07 

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in  2019  with  funding  from 
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https://archive.org/details/hilltopsingalileOOspea 


A 


BOOKS  BY 

HAROLD  SPEAKMAN 


HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 
BEYOND  SHANGHAI 
FROM  A  SOLDIER’S  HEART 


On  its  battered  pillars  may  still  be  seen  many  small  crosses  cut  by 
the  Crusaders.  Its  walls  have  echoed  to  desperate  fighting  and  to  the 
praise  of  numberless  pilgrims.  The  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre, 
Jerusalem. 


By 

HAROLD  "SPEARMAN 


EIGHT  ILLUSTRATIONS  IN  COLOR 
FROM  PAINTINGS  BY  THE  AUTHOR 


THE  ABINGDON  PRESS 

NEW  YORK  CINCINNATI 


Copyright,  192S,  by 
HAROLD  SPEAKMAN 


Printed  in  the  United  States  of  America 

First  Edition  Printed  June,  1923 
Reprinted  January,  1925 


The  author  is  grateful  to  Everybody9 s 
Magazine ,  to  the  Delineator ,  and  to  the 
Dodge  Publishing  Company  for  their  per - 
mission  to  reprint  the  accompanying  verse . 

He  is  particularly  grateful  to  his  sister , 
Anne  Reed  Ferris ,  /or  her  generous 
assistance  with  the  manuscript . 


/ 


TO  MY  FRIEND 
HELEN  KEY  STONE 


\ 


I 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

Preface .  13 

The  High  City .  15 

Thomas  Speaks .  61 

Interlude .  63 

Koren .  79 

“Stille  Nacht  .  .  101 

Carol .  108 

The  Monastery .  131 

John  Speaks .  161 

The  Wilderness .  163 

The  Town . . 189 

“Once  in  Nazareth” .  199 

The  Toilers .  208 

Blue  Waters .  219 

Kor£n  And — . 237 

In  Conclusion .  258 


/ 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre . Frontispiece 

FACING  PAGE 

The  Keeper  of  the  Tower .  28 

Doorway  to  the  Tomb .  40 

Bethlehem .  104 

Bethlehem  Costume .  126 

The  Monastery  of  St.  Saba .  152 

The  Citadel .  192 

The  Shepherds .  232 


PREFACE 


There  is  an  old  story — the  “Juggler  of 
Notre  Dame” — in  which  an  itinerant  mounte¬ 
bank,  wandering  about  the  streets  of  Paris, 
found  himself  one  day  before  the  ancient  por¬ 
tal  of  the  Church  of  Our  Lady.  Entering,  he 
stood  for  a  time  among  the  cool  shadows  of 
the  nave,  silent  and  quite  alone  in  spite  of  the 
never-ending  stream  of  worshipers  about  him. 
He  did  not  know  the  hosannas  or  the  anthems 
that  they  were  singing.  Such  orisons  and 
chants  as  he  had  learned  in  his  childhood  were 
long  since  forgotten. 

But  at  last,  hardly  aware  of  what  he  did,  he 
drew  out  the  bag  containing  his  battered  hoops, 
rings,  and  toys,  and,  kneeling  among  the  more 
worthy  people,  he  performed  such  simple  mat¬ 
ters  as  he  had  learned  here  and  there  on  his 
journeys. 

Hoops,  rings,  toys.  .  .  . 

Yet  the  old-time  writer  of  the  story  went  on 
to  explain  very  carefully  that  the  Gracious 
Lady  took  no  offense. 


/ 


\ 


THE  HIGH  CITY 


CHAPTER  I 


1 

Mischa  Yucoyitch  and  I  fought  the  battle 
of  Port  Said  together.  The  first  skirmish  came 
at  dawn  aboard  the  City  of  Bombay  when  a 
glistening-black  boatman,  once  of  the  Soudan, 
demanded  twenty  shillings  for  taking  us  to 
the  jetty.  Mischa  Yucovitch  considered  the 
navigator  through  sad,  experienced  eyes. 
In  the  long  ago  he  too  had  lived  at  Port  Said. 

“Just  like  twenty  years  before,”  he  mused. 
“Why,  for  twenty  shillings  we  can  buy  the 
boat!”  Then  he  addressed  the  dusky  profiteer 
in  Arabic,  and  shortly — at  a  much  reduced  fee 
— we  went  ashore.  Port  Said  is  the  greatest 
international  junction  in  the  world.  It  is  dis¬ 
tinctly  a  place  en  route.  To  get  off  of  a  pas¬ 
senger  steamer,  spend  a  few  hours  in  the  town, 
and  then  to  climb  back  on  the  steamer  again, 
is  very  pleasant ;  but  if  it  is  necessary  to  arrive 
with  baggage  by  boat,  and  depart  with  bag¬ 
gage  by  train — woe! 

Presently  the  battle  raged  high.  The 
shrieks  of  the  porters,  the  growls  of  the  port 

17 


18  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


control ,  the  chatter  of  the  sanitary  corps,  the 
dramatic  discovery  of  six  new  shirts  in  the 
trunk  of  Mischa  Yucovitch,  the  outraged  cries 
of  the  customs  officials,  the  wiring  and  sealing 
of  his  baggage,  the  receipts,  the  telegrams,  the 
checks.  .  .  .  And  then,  late  in  the  afternoon 
.  .  .  ah,  well  .  .  .  the  deep,  mutual  sigh  of 
relief  as  the  train  pulled  out  eastward  along 
the  Suez  toward  Kantara. 

Mischa  Yucovitch,  on  the  wooden  bench  be¬ 
side  me,  was  a  dark,  rotund  little  man  with  a 
large  mustache  and  a  neat  suit  of  brown,  store- 
made  clothes.  Anyone  not  knowing  he  was  a 
Jew  might  easily  have  taken  him  for  a  Turk 
or  an  Egyptian.  I  remembered  the  evening  of 
our  first  meeting  on  the  City  of  Bombay  a  day 
or  two  out  from  New  York.  We  had  run 
through  all  the  generalities  about  accommoda¬ 
tions,  speed,  and  the  possibility  of  bad  weather. 
Then  the  talk  had  turned  to  our  respective  oc¬ 
cupations,  and  finally  to  pictures  and  paint¬ 
ing. 

“I  was  in  Paris  once  for  two  weeks,”  he  said. 
“Do  you  know  a  picture  in  the  Louvre  by  Raf- 
faello  called  'Christ  before  Pilate?’  ”  (He  pro¬ 
nounced  it  Peelot.)  “Hours  I  stood  in 
front  of  that  picture!  I  never  in  my  life  saw 


THE  HIGH  CITY 


19 


such  a  face  as  that  one;  why,  it  seemed  like  I 
could  never  get  finished  looking  at  it.  I  used 
to  come  back  day  after  day.  .  .” 

I  was  puzzled.  The  man  was  a  Jew — and 
yet  here  he  was  admiring  “Christ  before  Pi¬ 
late”!  By  all  the  tenets  of  his  religion,  that 
picture,  I  thought,  should  have  been  distaste¬ 
ful. 

So  I  said: 

“But  you  are  not  a  Christian.” 

He  smiled  gravely.  “I  was  not  looking  at  the 
soul  of  Christ,”  he  said.  “1  was  looking  at  the 
soul  of  Rafaello ." 

Later,  in  my  cabin,  I  took  out  the  business 
card  which  the  little  man  had  given  me.  It  was 
a  bad  piece  of  job  printing  on  a  very  poor 
grade  of  cardboard.  Across  the  top  ran, 
“Roger’s  Silverware  Free  to  Customers.” 
Then  came  a  printer’s  stock  design,  and  below 
it  the  words,  “Mischa  Yucovitch,  Dry  Goods 
and  General  Merchandise;  Notions  and  Shoes, 
Hardware,  Paints,  Queensware;  24-26  Ed¬ 
ward  Street,  Braddock,  Va.”  The  reverse  side 
read,  “One  card  like  this  with  every  25c  pur¬ 
chase.”  It  gave  the  further  information  that 
fifty  cards  could  be  exchanged  for  a  teaspoon, 
a  hundred  and  fifty  for  a  tablespoon,  two  hun- 


20  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


dred  and  fifty  for  a  butter  knife.  In  flaring 
red  letters  across  the  face  of  the  card  ran  the 
caption,  “Don’t  ask  for  credit.  We  don’t  keep 
it  in  stock.” 

And  yet — “I  was  looking  at  the  soul  of  Raf - 
faelloT  Here  before  me,  in  one  flashing  ex¬ 
ample,  was  the  lift  and  fall,  the  highest  and  the 
lowest  of  Jewish  tribal  propensities — that 
strange,  intense  combination  of  spirituality 
and  commercialism  which  has  molded  the  race 
from  its  beginnings. 

He  told  me  the  next  day  why  he  was  going 
to  Palestine. 

“I  am  going  to  see  what  it  is  like. 
If  it  is  all  right,  I’ll  send  for  my  wife  and  fam¬ 
ily  from  Virginia.” 

“What  is  the  matter  with  Virginia?”  I  in¬ 
quired. 

“There  ain’t  a  thing  in  the  world  the  matter 
with  it,”  he  said,  warmly;  “but  where  I  live,  I 
just  cant  bring  my  children  up  as  Jews.  I 
tried  to  teach  them  the  old  customs,  but  even 
when  they  were  small  they  said  to  me,  f Fader > 
our  Sabbath  is  on  Saturday,  isn’t  it?  Then  for 
what  do  you  keep  the  store  open  on  Saturday?’ 
I  tried  shutting  it  up  on  Friday  night  for  four 
months,  but  I  came  pretty  near  going  under.” 


THE  HIGH  CITY 


21 


He  shook  his  head  reminiscently.  “Besides, 
there  is  no  J ewish  school  in  Braddock.  The  re¬ 
sult  is  that  just  now,  my  children  are  not  Chris¬ 
tians  and  they  are  not  Jews.” 

In  other  respects,  he  had  been  doing  well. 
The  neighbors  treated  him  decently.  His  was 
the  only  general  store  in  Braddock.  “If  I  stay 
there  another  ten  years,”  he  said,  a  little  wist¬ 
fully,  “I  don’t  have  to  work  any  more.  But 
by  that  time,”  he  added,  “my  children  won’t 
have  any  religion  at  all.” 

Spirituality  against  commercialism.  .  .  .  The 
earnestness  of  the  struggle  was  in  no  way  les¬ 
sened  by  the  fact  that  he  kept  a  general  store. 
As  far  as  that  went,  he  might  just  as  well  have 
been  a  bank  president — or  a  collector  of  rags 
and  bottles. 

Mischa  Yucovitch  interested  me.  That  is 
why  I  decided  to  let  my  own  affairs — the 
writing  of  a  book  about  Palestine  from  quite 
another  angle — wait  for  a  time,  and  go  with 
him  directly  to  Jerusalem. 

2 

So,  from  Port  Said  began  the  long  journey 
to  the  north ;  the  six-hour  wait  on  the  Egyptian 
frontier  at  Kantara  with  the  black  waters  of 


22  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


the  Suez  Canal  drifting  to  the  east ;  the  flicker¬ 
ing  lights  of  the  passport  office,  and  the  com¬ 
fortable  rubber  stamp,  “Permitted  to  enter 
Palestine  ”  Once  aboard  the  express,  we  sat 
up  side  by  side  the  rest  of  the  night  in  order 
that  two  elderly  French  ladies  might  obtain  a 
little  sleep  on  the  opposite  seat.  Then,  after 
interminable  hours  of  listening  to  the  French 
ladies  snore  “individually  one  by  one,”  came 
morning  and  the  mud-walled  town  of  Gaza 
(where  the  Turks  once  gave  the  British  such  a 
terrific  time),  and  then  the  junction  at  Ludd, 
with  a  dozen  phalanxes  of  food-laden  Oriental 
pilgrims  waiting  to  storm  the  Jerusalem  train. 

Ludd  lies  just  at  the  eastern  edge  of  the 
broad  coast  plain,  which  runs  north  and  south 
along  the  Mediterranean  like  a  strip  of  green 
carpet  practically  the  entire  length  of  Pales¬ 
tine.  East  of  the  plain  is  a  great  parallel  range 
of  hills  culminating  in  the  Lebanons  to  the 
north.  Beyond  the  hills  and  also  running 
north  and  south,  is  the  valley  of  the  Jordan, 
ending  in  the  Dead  Sea.  So,  between  the  Med¬ 
iterranean  and  the  mountain  ranges  of  Moab 
and  Gilead  rising  beyond  the  Jordan,  Pales¬ 
tine  divides  itself  into  three  great  simple 
bands:  the  plain,  the  hills,  the  valley. 


THE  HIGH  CITY 


23 


The  wide  central  ridge  is  broken  and  made 
accessible  by  many  transverse  ravines,  or 
wadies ,  running  in  between  the  spines  of  its 
rugged  backbone.  A  few  of  these  wadies , 
owing  to  the  presence  of  springs,  are  fertile 
and  rich  in  foliage.  The  majority,  however, 
are  barren,  fantastic  gorges,  deeply  eroded  by 
spring  torrents  and  spring  rain.  Up  one  of 
the  latter  the  local  train,  packed  tight  with 
moist,  expectant  pilgrims,  nosed  its  way  into 
the  hills. 


3 

Eastward,  the  ground  rose  rapidly.  Little 
outcroppings  of  white  limestone  glistened  on 
the  grassy  slopes,  and  the  mud-brick  huts  of 
the  plain  gave  way  to  flat-roofed  dwellings  of 
stone.  I  looked  around  for  Mischa  Yucovitch, 
for  we  had  become  separated  in  the  crowd. 
Finally  I  saw  him  on  the  platform  of  the  next 
coach  sitting  carefully  on  his  baggage,  with 
his  eyes  raised  to  the  hills. 

An  intelligent-looking  young  man  with 
deeply  sun-tanned  face,  eyeglasses,  a  small 
mustache,  and  dark,  penetrating  eyes  was 
standing  beside  me.  A  Turkish  fez  was  on  his 
head,  but  he  wore  his  European  clothes  in  a 


24 


HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


way  which  showed  that  he  had  not  put  them 
on  just  for  the  holiday.  He  looked  as  though 
he  might  speak  an  Occidental  tongue. 

“What  time  shall  we  arrive  in  Jerusalem?” 
I  essayed. 

“Thank  you  very  much,”  he  said  in  pleasant, 
slightly  broken  English.  “We  should  be  com¬ 
ing  there  now.  But  the  train  is  late  because 
of  so  many  people.  It  must  be  another  one- 
half  hour.” 

“Have  you  traveled  by  this  route  before?” 

“No,  I  am  from  the  north,  from  Damascus. 
I  have  not  yet  had  some  opportunity  to  see 
Jerusalem.  But  it  has  been  for  a  long  time 
my  wish  to  see  the  city  and  the  Church  of  the 
Holy  Sepulchre.” 

Involuntarily  I  looked  at  his  Turkish  fez. 

He  smiled.  “You  look  to  see  that  I  wear  the 
tarbush.  In  the  East  it  is  the  way  of  many 
Christians — English,  French,  Italian,  Greek. 
I  am  an  Armenian.  I  too  wear  it,  although” — 
he  glanced  around  as  he  spoke — “my  father 
was  killed  by  the  Turks.  The  tarbush  is  inter - 
nationale.  Besides,”  he  added,  significantly, 
“if  you  wear  it,  some  one  will  not  always  be 
looking  at  you.” 

The  train  puffed  slowly  on  between  hills 


THE  HIGH  CITY 


25 


formed  of  layer  upon  layer  of  smooth,  white 
limestone  into  which  the  valley  had  cut  its  way. 
It  was  as  though  we  were  traveling  upward 
through  the  first  significant  white  pages  of  Mr. 
Wells’  history.  Ears  cracked  a  little  at  the 
altitude,  for  we  had  risen  two  thousand  feet 
above  the  plain.  Small  stone-walled  fields 
ascended  the  sides  of  the  canyon  in  series  of 
mosaic  steps.  Above  them,  a  hill  town  or  two 
peered  down  at  us.  Then  the  whistle  blew. 

“My  name  is  Koren,”  said  the  young  Ar¬ 
menian,  bidding  me  good-by.  “Perhaps  we 
shall  some  time  meet  in  the  city.” 

And  here  was  the  station,  with  the  pilgrims 
pouring  out  of  the  train,  and  Mischa  Yuco- 
vitch  signaling  me  from  the  other  coach.  The 
Jerusalem  station — but  not  Jerusalem.  The 
city  lies  a  mile  away,  around  a  hill  and  through 
a  valley,  beyond  a  white  twist  of  dusty  road. 

4 

Bewilderment!  In  the  first  flashing  glimpse 
of  Jerusalem  I  cannot  claim  any  more  intelli¬ 
gent  emotion  than  that.  Thirty  hours  without 
sleep  no  doubt  had  their  effect.  But  where, 
in  that  intense,  flashing  brightness,  was  the 
Jaffa  Gate?  And  the  Tower  of  David?  And 


26  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


where  was  the  high,  proud  city  dominating  its 
hills?  And  why  had  I  not  read  somewhere  of 
the  dazzling  brightness  of  this  white  dust  over 
everything? 

The  motor  swept  away  to  the  left  up  a  busy 
road,  skirted  the  inclosure  of  a  vast,  five-domed 
Russian  church,  and  turned  again  into  a  quiet 
street.  Still  nothing  familiar!  Then — sud¬ 
denly — as  I  looked  across  a  valley  off  to  the 
right,  came  a  great  heart-beat.  F or  there,  shin¬ 
ing  in  the  glory  of  the  setting  sun,  lay  Olivet. 


CHAPTER  II 


1 

We  arrived  in  Jerusalem  at  a  time  of  in¬ 
tense  excitement.  Three  great  religions  were 
about  to  celebrate  their  highest  festivals  of 
the  year — the  Jews,  their  Passover;  the  Chris¬ 
tians,  Easter;  and  the  Moslems,  their  cere¬ 
monies  at  the  Tomb  of  Moses.  The  Hebron 
Arabs — notorious  fanatics — were  already  ap¬ 
proaching  the  city  on  their  way  to  the  tradi¬ 
tional  tomb  of  Moses  near  the  Dead  Sea. 

For  centuries  their  route  had  lain  directly 
through  Jerusalem — in  through  the  west  wall 
by  the  Jaffa  Gate,  down  David  Street  and  into 
the  great  Temple  Enclosure  at  the  lower  end 
of  the  city  where  the  Mosque  of  Omar  stands. 
In  a  previous  year  the  government  had  at¬ 
tempted  to  divert  their  route  to  a  road  outside 
of  the  city.  During  the  fighting  that  ensued 
eight  men  were  killed.  Now  the  matter  was 
better  understood,  and  the  Arabs  were  to  be 
allowed  to  pass  in  by  the  Jaffa  Gate. 

The  byways  were  completely  blocked  by 
British  troops — calm,  bronzed  veterans  stand- 

27 


28  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


ing  in  silent  ranks  with  the  red  badge  of  the 
Lancastershire  regiments  on  their  khaki  sun 
helmets.  Four  droning  aeroplanes  circled 
overhead,  and  beyond  the  troops  the  sun  shone 
on  the  silent,  ominous  barrels  of  machine  guns. 
It  was  plain  that  in  case  of  necessity  the  Holy 
Sepulchre  would  still  be  defended. 

The  Arabs  came  slowly  up  the  road,  banners 
waving,  drums  thumping,  with  raucous  cries 
of  “Palestina  baladina,  el-Yahud  kalabina!” 
(“Palestine  is  our  country  and  the  Jews  are 
our  dogs!”)  If  there  were  to  be  trouble,  it 
would  come  now.  A  short  command  from  the 
officers,  and  the  troops  clicked  to  “attention.” 
They  were  ready. 

On  came  the  Arabs.  As  they  approached 
the  gate  the  head  of  their  column  half  turned 
toward  the  troops,  wavered  a  moment,  thought 
better  of  it — and  went  in.  The  rest  followed 
their  leaders  complacently  enough  down  David 
Street.  The  strain  was  off.  For  the  present, 
at  least,  there  would  be  no  trouble;  everyone 
breathed  more  easily.  The  last  stragglers 
passed  in,  the  crowd  about  the  wall  began  to 
disperse,  and  the  troops  reformed  and  marched 
off,  leaving  a  few  gendarmes  in  charge. 

And  here  was  the  Jaffa  Gate. 


c&he  peeper  of  the  Tower  of  David.  He  sits  dap  after  dap  above 
the  moat  beside  the  Jaffa  gate  smoking  his  hubble-bubble  and  thinking 
about — who  knows  what  ? 


THE  HIGH  CITY 


29 


2 

It  was  not  strange  that  I  had  previously 
missed  seeing  the  Jaffa  Gate.  The  motor  had 
turned  away  from  it  a  hundred  yards  down  the 
road.  Then,  too,  the  gate  would  hardly  attract 
attention  if  it  were  not  surmounted  by  a  mod¬ 
ern  Arabic  clock-tower  built  over  it  with  cold¬ 
blooded  disregard  for  its  simple  sixteenth-cen¬ 
tury  architecture.  As  I  passed  in,  a  bootblack 
wearing  a  pair  of  huge,  baghke  trousers  called 
out,  “Oh,  Mr.  Ashby!”  and  made  signs  that  he 
wished  to  polish  my  shoes.  That  voice  was  to 
become  very  familiar,  for  its  owner  called  all 
foreigners,  male  and  female,  “Oh,  Mr. 
Ashby!” 

In  the  city’s  wall  beside  the  gate  is  a  wide 
hole  made  by  order  of  the  last  German  em¬ 
peror  at  the  time  of  his  visit  to  the  Holy  Land 
in  1898.  (His  mode  of  entry  to  the  city  was 
rather  pointless ;  for,  notwithstanding  the  fact 
that  Jerusalem  was  under  Turkish  rule  at  the 
time,  he  rode  triumphantly  in,  wearing  the  glit¬ 
tering  armor  of  a  Crusader. )  But  now  I  stood 
looking  at  the  hole  in  some  surprise,  remember¬ 
ing  all  the  uncomplimentary  references  to  it 
that  I  had  read.  The  writers,  in  damning  the 
Kaiser  in  general,  and  his  entry  into  the  city 


30  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


in  particular,  had  quite  neglected  the  hole! 
One  got  the  impression  that  at  best,  it  was  a 
kolossal  jagged  desecration,  with  saw-toothed 
edges  of  rock  and  old  plaster. 

I  know  that  all  the  holes  the  former  Kaiser 
made  are  not  good  holes.  I  know  because  I 
saw  him  making  some  of  them.  But  the  hole 
at  the  Jaffa  Gate  is  a  very  good  hole.  It  is 
well  made  and  well  finished,  with  carefully 
built  sides  of  dressed  stone.  The  roadway  is 
smooth  and  even.  Access  to  the  city  is  infi¬ 
nitely  better  and  more  comfortable  than  it 
could  have  been  before.1 

Inside  the  gate  stood  Mischa  Yucovitch. 
He  had  just  come  up  out  of  the  city  and  looked 
very,  very  thoughtful.  I  remembered  an  Eng¬ 
lish  friend  of  mine  whom  I  had  once  asked  to 
describe  Jerusalem  for  me. 

“First,”  he  said,  “imagine  the  city  of  Bag¬ 
dad.” 

“I  have  never  been  to  Bagdad!” 

“So  much  the  better.  Just  visualize  what 
you  think  it  is — minarets,  domes,  beggars, 

1There  is  a  movement  on  foot  to  rebuild  this  section  of  wall 
for  aesthetic  and  religious  reasons.  The  ancient  character  of 
the  city  should  of  course  be  retained.  But  a  restoration 
which  will  cramp  and  hamper  the  daily  comings  and  goings 
of  ten  or  twelve  thousand  living  people  seems  to  put  the 
emphasis  for  beauty  in  the  wrong  place. 


THE  HIGH  CITY 


31 


Haroun  el  Raschid,  and  all  that.  Then,  when 
you  have  considered  it  sufficiently,  squeeze  it 
together  into  an  irregular  square,  put  it  astride 
four  flat-topped  hills,  and  rebuild  its  light 
architecture  with  rugged  stone  masonry. 
Raise  two  of  the  hills  so  that  the  streets  jam 
down  into  narrow,  crooked  rifts  between  the 
houses,  running  here  and  there  into  long  tun¬ 
nel-like  passages,  which  are  the  bazaars.  Add 
every  unpleasant  smell  that  you  can  think  of, 
and — that’s  Jerusalem.” 

From  Mischa  Yucovitch’s  face  it  was  evi¬ 
dent  that  he  had  gathered  much  the  same  im¬ 
pression. 

“Driven  out  of  the  land  for  two  thousand 
years,”  he  mused.  “Every  one  of  us  is  burning 
to  see  it,  but — what  is  there  to  see?” 

“Then  you  don’t  like  the  city?” 

“Well — I’m  a  little  off  the  track  just  yet,” 
he  answered.  “I  can’t  just  say.  .  .  .  But  you 
— have  you  seen  your  Christian  things  yet?” 

“No,”  I  said  to  him,  “not  yet.”  I  had  al¬ 
ready  asked  myself  that  same  question.  Why 
don't  you  go  to  the  Garden  of  Gethsemane, 
and  the  Mount  of  Olives ,  and  Bethany ?  And 
the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre?  But 
something  had  answered,  “No — not  yet.” 


32 


HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


Perhaps — although  I  disliked  the  idea — it  was 
because  a  Jew,  Mischa  Yucovitch,  was  with 
me.  Perhaps  it  was  because  I  shrank  from 
finding  pagan  matters  in  my  own  religion 
which  I  knew  were  there. 

‘‘There  is  no  hurry,”  I  said.  “I  want  to 
make  a  book  about  all  this;  a  book  that  is  as 
honest  as  I  can  make  it.” 

“You  want  to  make  a  hook?”  He  laughed. 
“We  have  to  make  a  country .  You  have  your 
paint  and  paper  and  ink.  What  have  we  to 
work  with?  Since  the  time  of  the  Sanhedrin, 
no  one  has  made  national  laws  for  the  Jews. 
Those  early  laws  w^ere  made  two  thousand 
years  ago,  and  now  they  don’t  fit  our  modern 
life  at  all.  For  example,  there  is  a  ceremony 
for  lighting  the  lamps  on  our  Sabbath.  Accord¬ 
ing  to  the  old  rule,  we  should  use  oil  lamps  or 
candles,  because  such  lights  do  not  make  men 
work  on  that  day  the  way  gas  or  electric  lights 
do.  When  you  turn  on  the  gas  or  the  electric¬ 
ity  the  old  ceremony  is  obsolete !  Y et  there  are 
millions  of  Jews  who  want  to  stick  close  to 
the  old,  useless  rules,  other  millions  who  want 
to  keep  just  the  best  part,  and  still  others  who 
want  only  a  shadow  of  the  old  religion.  Our 
people  come  from  every  country  in  the  world. 


THE  HIGH  CITY 


33 


From  everywhere.  Palaces  .  .  .  caves.  .  . 
He  was  silent  for  a  moment.  Then  followed 
another  of  those  wistful  observations  which 
seemed  to  disavow  the  general  store  at  Brad- 
dock,  Virginia.  “The  dream,”  he  said,  “is 
always  better  than  the  reality.” 

I  remained  silent  too,  not  because  I  agreed 
with  him  but  because  I  had  been  thinking  for 
some  time  that  if  one  can  make  realities  out  of 
his  dreams,  he  is  infinitely  better  off  than  if 
he  never  dreamed  at  all. 

We  walked  back  to  the  Jewish  hotel  beyond 
the  Russian  cathedral. 


3 

The  central  room  was  paved  with  large, 
roughly  finished  squares  of  red  tile.  Rugged 
gray  stone  walls,  pointed  with  white  plaster, 
rose  solidly  to  the  distant  broad-beamed  roof. 
The  venerable  host  in  faded  gown  of  brown 
velvet,  black  skullcap  fringed  with  fur,  and 
a  single  long  curl  dangling  in  front  of  each  ear, 
greeted  us  kindly.  He  was  busy  filling  the 
lamps  with  oil  for  the  approaching  Sabbath 
which  began  at  sunset.  The  handmaidens  of 
the  hotel  assisted  him.  Each  wore  a  single, 
short-sleeved  garment,  buttoned  down  the 


34  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


front.  Their  hair  lay  in  thick,  motionless 
braids  on  their  backs,  and  they  planted  their 
bare  feet  with  solid  deliberation.  When  they 
moved,  it  should  have  been  to  the  accompani¬ 
ment  of  ancient  Hebrew  instruments — the 
systra,  the  halil,  and  the  dulcimef.  Some 
brought  in  the  full  lamps.  Others  carried  the 
empty  lamps  away.  It  was  very  virginal. 

We  went  down  to  the  dining  room,  a  large 
refectory  with  massive  arches  and  a  blue  dome 
decorated  with  yellow  stars.  The  meal  con¬ 
sisted  of  cold  viands  prepared  earlier  in  the 
day — boiled  chicken,  gefilte  herring,  and  com¬ 
pote  of  mish-mish,  which  is  the  older  brother 
of  the  apricot.  The  herring  was  good,  and  so 
was  the  compote,  and  the  bread  and  olives  and 
cheese;  but  a  strange,  half -familiar  flavor  lin¬ 
gered  about  the  chicken.  Mischa  Yucovitch 
and  I  took  our  first  mouthful  at  the  same  mo¬ 
ment,  then  paused  and  looked  at  each  other. 

“What  is  it?”  I  asked. 

“Kerosene,”  he  said,  with  the  slightest  tone 
of  irony.  “Kerosene — from  the  lamps.” 

Following  his  schedule  of  observation 
Yucovitch  left  the  next  day  for  Jaffa,  and  I 
did  not  see  him  again  for  many  weeks.  At 
the  same  time  I  moved  to  the  Hotel  Saint 


THE  HIGH  CITY 


35 


John  in  the  center  of  the  city.  Standing  on 
the  inner  balcony  of  the  hotel,  one  looked  di- 
rectly  out  upon  the  battered  fa9ade  of  the 
Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre  which  I  wanted 
very  much  to  paint.  And  here  I  again  met  the 
Armenian,  Koren,  a  meeting  after  all,  not  very 
strange,  for  from  this  place  he  too  could  see 
the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre. 


CHAPTER  III 


I 

It  is  not  a  large  square — that  in  front  of 
the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre.  Hardly 
more  than  thirty  paces  each  way.  The  massive 
walls  of  the  Greek  monastery  on  either  side 
make  it  seem  even  smaller.  Opposite  the 
facade  is  another  wall  which  is  not  so  high, 
■  with  a  small  garden  at  the  back  of  it,  a  few' 
feet  above  the  square.  Beyond  its  trees  and 
bushes  may  be  seen  the  narrow  balcony  of  the 
hotel,  and  beyond  the  hotel  is  a  plot  of  ground 
called  the  Muristan.  Here,  during  the  Cru¬ 
sades,  the  Hospitallers,  or  Knights  of  Saint 
John,  had  their  hospice.  At  first  their  duty 
consisted  only  in  giving  aid  to  pilgrims,  but 
later,  on  more  than  one  occasion,  they  served  in 
the  battle  line.  Their  flag  will  not  easily  be 
forgotten  by  our  present  generation.  It  is  a 
red  cross  on  a  white  field. 

The  ancient  facade  of  the  church  dates  al¬ 
most  wholly  from  the  time  of  the  Crusades. 
On  its  columns,  a  number  of  small  crosses  cut 

36 


THE  HIGH  CITY 


37 


by  the  Crusaders  themselves  are  still  visible; 
and  within  the  doorway,  under  a  flat  stone,  lies 
one  '‘Philip  d’Aubigny,  Knight  of  Christ.” 
The  facade  is  not  beautiful.  And  yet,  let  us 
consider  for  a  moment  the  history  of  the 
church.  Hither  have  come  kings,  queens,  chil¬ 
dren,  hermits,  murderers,  serfs — a  vast  army 
reaching  back  through  centuries  of  bitterest 
oppression.  No  site  in  the  world  has  been  so 
disputed  as  this;  countless  millions  of  people 
have  set  out  to  reach  it. 

For  the  first  three  hundred  years  of  the 
Christian  era,  the  burial  place  of  Jesus  of 
Nazareth  was  undetermined.  In  326  a.  d., 
while  some  extensive  building  excavations  were 
being'  made  in  Jerusalem,  Helena,  the  mother 
of  the  Byzantine  Emperor  Constantine,  hap¬ 
pened  into  the  city.  Tradition  relates  that  one 
day  when  the  queen  was  watching  the  work¬ 
men,  the  true  cross  came  to  light  in  one  of  these 
excavations.  The  whole  world  heard  the  news 
with  breathless  interest.  The  Cross !  Two 
splendid  churches  (later  joined  into  one)  were 
erected,  the  first  over  the  spot  where  the  relic 
was  found,  the  other  above  a  near-by  tomb 
where  Christ  was  believed  to  have  been  placed 
by  Joseph  of  Arimathaea.  Then  began  a 


38 


HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


chronicle  that  is  unparalleled  in  the  history  of 
any  edifice. 

326  a.  d.  Built  by  Constantine. 

614  Destroyed  by  invading  Persians. 

626  Rebuilt  by  Abbot  Modestus. 

800  Restored  by  Charlemagne. 

934  Burned  by  the  Turks. 

940  Rebuilt. 

9 —  Destroyed  and  rebuilt. 

969  Destroyed  by  Hakim  the  Great. 

1037  Rebuilt  by  the  Greek  Emperor, 

Michael  IV. 

1077  Pillaged  by  Seljuk  Turks. 

1244  Burned  by  Tartars. 

1280  Restored. 

1555  Destroyed. 

1714  Restored . 

1808  Burned. 

1810  Rebuilt  in  present  form. 

These  years  have  seen  innumerable  stirring 
episodes.  In  1187  a.  d.,  Saladin,  the  “noble 
enemy,”  was  besieging  a  certain  fiery  old  war¬ 
rior,  Balin  d’lbelin,  within  the  city.  The  lat¬ 
ter,  who  was  in  desperate  straits,  received  the 
Mussulman’s  heralds ;  but  not  being  at  all  sat¬ 
isfied  with  the  terms  offered,  he  sent  Saladin 


THE  HIGH  CITY 


39 


this  answer:  “Very  well,  my  lord,  we  will  our¬ 
selves  destroy  our  city  and  the  Mosque  of 
Omar  and  the  Stone  of  Jacob.  And  when 
there  is  nothing  left  but  a  heap  of  ruins,  we 
will  sally  forth  with  sword  and  fire  in  hand; 
and  not  one  of  us  will  go  to  Paradise  without 
sending  ten  Mussulmans  to  Hell.”  It  is  pleas¬ 
ant  to  relate  that  Saladin,  who  above  other 
things  admired  courage,  granted  to  the  gallant 
old  knight  the  terms  he  desired. 

From  Saladin’s  time  the  edifice  remained  in 
Moslem  power,  until  on  December  11,  1917, 
an  officer  in  British  uniform,  trudging  at  the 
head  of  his  troops,  came  quietly  in  by  the  Jaffa 
Gate  and  took  the  city. 

2 

Within  the  church,  beneath  the  high-domed 
rotunda,  are  the  chapels  of  the  Armenians, 
Greeks,  Syrians,  Abyssinians,  and  Copts. 
They  surround  an  ornate  shrine  of  reddish 
marble,  the  interior  of  which  is  divided  into 
two  small  rooms.  The  outer  chamber  contains 
a  stone  which  is  said  to  have  covered  the  mouth 
of  the  sepulchre.  In  the  room  beyond,  under 
a  shelf  of  marble  now  used  as  an  altar,  is  the 
tomb  of  Christ. 


40  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


Yacoub  Nseibeh,  of  an  old  Mohammedan 
family  whose  descendants  have  for  many  cen¬ 
turies  served  as  custodians  of  the  church, 
guided  me  with  great  care  about  the  dim  chap¬ 
els  and  corridors,  first  showing  me  the  tomb, 
and  the  place  called  Calvary,  and  later  explain¬ 
ing  the  legends  which  cling  about  the  church. 
Here  Adam’s  skull  had  been  found;  on  this 
spot  Abraham  was  about  to  sacrifice  Isaac 
when  the  ram  appeared;  this  was  the  tomb  of 
Nicodemus  .  .  .  here  was  the  cleft  in  the 
rock  .  .  .  the  place  where  Mary  Magdalene 

had  stood.  .  .  .  the  column  that  shed  tears. .  .  . 

“Do  you  believe  these  things,  Yacoub  Nsei¬ 
beh?”  I  asked. 

“No — nothing  at  all,”  he  answered. 

“You  Moslems  believe  that  Christ  was  a 
great  prophet,  do  you  not?” 

“Yes.  But  we  do  not  think  that  he  ever  was 
here.” 

I  asked  a  Greek  pilgrim  who  spoke  German 
how  much  he  believed. 

“Alles!  Alles!”  he  said,  warmly. 

I  asked  a  French  Franciscan  whom  I  met  in 
one  of  the  chapels  whether  he  believed  that  this 
was  the  scene  of  Christ’s  burial. 

“I  believe,”  he  replied  with  a  friendly  smile. 


c&he  doorway  to  the  tomb  of  Christ. 


THE  HIGH  CITY 


41 


“but  I  will  not  argue  too  strongly!  This  may 
very  well  be  the  place.  Or  perhaps  it  is  not. 
But  I  think  we  must  raise  our  vision  a  little 
beyond  the  dispute  as  to  whether  Christ’s  body 
lay  just  here  or  at  some  other  spot  not  far 
away.  By  all  the  prayers  and  the  faith  that 
this  place  has  known,  it  is  holy  ground.” 

And  as  I  passed  out  of  the  dank,  moldy  in¬ 
terior  into  the  sunlit  court  I  thought  to  myself 
that  he  was  right — that  it  does  not  matter 
whether  it  was  in  this  square  rod  of  earth  or 
that.  We  can  afford  to  pass  rather  quietly  over 
the  age-long  controversy ;  even  that  con¬ 
troversy  shows  something  in  favor  of  men’s 
hearts.  A  staunch  loyalty.  A  high  courage. 

But  a  day  or  two  later  I  was  to  see  some¬ 
thing  at  that  place,  where  Christ’s  body  is  said 
to  have  lain,  which  was  not  to  be  answered  so 
easily. 

3 

The  Garden  of  Gethsemane,  tended  by 
French  Franciscans,  lies  across  the  valley  of 
the  Kedron  at  the  foot  of  the  Mount  of  Olives. 
It  is  a  simple  garden,  the  work  of  men  un¬ 
trained  in  landscape  gardening,  who  with  un¬ 
tiring  hands  have  made  many  small,  round 


42  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


flower  beds  among  the  cypresses  and  old  olive 
trees.  Gethsemane.  A  dusty  little  garden, 
only  a  few  paces  long  and  wide,  with  cycla¬ 
mens  and  acacias,  and  a  well  in  the  center  with 
a  small  arbor  about  it.  Fifteen  hundred  years 
ago  this  spot  was  recognized  as  the  place  where 
the  Master  came  so  often  with  Peter  and 
James  and  the  Beloved  Disciple.  There  has 
been  no  such  conflict  of  opinion  here  as  there 
has  been  over  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepul¬ 
chre.  True,  the  Greeks  have  made  a  garden 
just  a  few  yards  up  the  hill,  but  it  might  very 
well  have  belonged  to  the  same  estate.  We 
know  that  the  original  garden  was  near  the 
foot  of  the  Mount  of  Olives,  sometimes  called 
Olivet.  Here  tradition  and  the  Bible  narrative 
fully  agree.  And  here  are  the  ancient,  gnarled 
trees,  one  plainly  many  years  older  than  the 
rest. 

A  Franciscan  with  kindly,  sun-tanned  face 
came  out  of  the  priory  and  greeted  me  as  I 
stood  beside  the  oldest  olive  tree. 

“That  is  the  tree  of  the  Master,”  he  said. 
“And  over  there,  beside  that  small  pillar  of 
stone,  is  the  place  where  the  disciples  slept.  .  .  . 
It  is  tranquil  here,  is  it  not?” 

And  then  I  said  to  him  in  that  French  which 


THE  HIGH  CITY 


43 


I  shall  never  be  able  to  speak  quite  correctly, 
and  yet  which  somehow  serves  so  well,  “Mon 
pere — you  have  this  garden  with  you  always. 
Every  day  you  may  come  here.  But  as  for 

_ _  55 

me — 

“I  understand,  mon  fils /’  he  said.  Then  he 
told  me  that  his  name  was  Frere  Julio,  and 
that  he  had  been  there  for  twenty-three  years. 
Most  of  that  time  had  passed  under  Turkish 
rule.  Ah,  those  were  difficult  times.  It  was 
very  different  then.  .  . 

At  last  I  asked  him  if  it  would  be  possible 
to  make  a  painting  in  the  garden. 

“Ah,  yes,”  he  answered,  cordially.  “Come 
anytime  you  wish — to-morrow,  Friday,  Satur¬ 
day.  But  not  on  Sunday.  The  garden  is  closed 
then.  Come  when  you  wish.” 

•  **•*••• 


4 

A  dense  mass  of  pilgrims  filled  the  square 
before  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre — 
an  unimaginable  conglomerate  of  people, 
punctuated  with  the  staccato  notes  of  a  hun¬ 
dred  red  tarbushes  scattered  through  the 
crowd.  Greek  priests  in  black  alpaca  robes 
and  cylindrical  hats  looked  down  anxiously 


44  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


from  the  top  of  their  monastery  walls.  To-day, 
Greeks  and  Armenians  were  to  share  the  cere¬ 
mony — the  Miracle  of  the  Holy  Fire — and 
frequently  in  the  past,  it  had  not  been  accom¬ 
plished  without  danger  and  even  death. 

The  crowd  below  seemed  to  feel  none  of  that 
apprehension.  It  was  waiting  for  the  church 
doors  to  be  opened,  in  the  meantime  amusing 
itself  with  a  candy  seller,  who,  thrust  into  a 
corner  against  his  red,  yellow,  and  orange 
wares,  was  appealing  to  the  police  to  be  ex¬ 
tricated  ;  with  an  old  man,  wrinkled  as  a  pome¬ 
granate,  who  squatted  on  a  near-by  roof  and 
never  took  his  unblinking  eyes  from  the  door; 
with  a  small  boy  beside  him,  eating  a  thick 
puree  of  beans  from  an  agate  pot.  He  dipped 
in  a  filthy  paw,  scooped  out  a  large  handful 
and,  entirely  disregarding  the  gibes  of  the 
crowd,  inserted  it  shovellike  into  his  mouth.  A 
vast  flock  of  swallows,  excited  by  the  noise, 
flew  screaming  in  a  black,  whirling  vortex 
overhead.  Below,  the  throng  seethed  and 
pushed,  jamming  itself  forward  toward  the 
church. 

Then  the  doors,  guarded  by  a  dozen  gen¬ 
darmes,  slowly  opened. 


THE  HIGH  CITY 


45 


5 

I  took  my  place  in  the  rotunda  three  hours 
before  the  Miracle  of  the  Holy  Fire  began. 
It  was  not  too  soon.  The  body  of  the  church 
was  already  filled  to  the  doors.  A  great 
throng  of  pilgrims  had  passed  the  night  on  the 
floor,  but  not,  as  the  almost  infallible  Baedeker 
states,  “in  order  to  secure  places.”  They  were 
Coptic  pilgrims  from  Egypt,  who,  with  their 
families,  had  been  housed  for  several  days  in 
the  rotunda  of  the  church  and  now  sat  in  dis¬ 
heveled,  ill-smelling  rows  against  the  walls. 
Between  these  and  the  marble  shrine  seethed  a 
great,  tumultuous  mob  of  men,  women,  and 
children,  each  carrying  a  bundle  of  unlit 
candles. 

And  now  the  great  shrine  was  being 
stripped  of  its  ornaments.  Ladders  rose 
against  its  sides.  Three  Greek  priests  work¬ 
ing  together  removed  the  huge  candles  before 
it.  The  bronze  candlesticks,  moving  under  the 
combined  effort  of  five  Armenians,  were  rolled 
out.  Interest  centered  on  two  blackened  holes 
at  the  sides  of  the  shrine.  (From  these  holes, 
the  fire  from  Heaven  was  to  appear.)  Then 
austere  thumps  on  the  floor  heralded  the  ap¬ 
proach  of  a  magnificently  dressed  Jcavass  lead- 


46 


HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


ing  a  church  or  diplomatic  party  to  their  places. 
The  pilgrims,  under  pressure  of  the  police,  re¬ 
luctantly  gave  way,  staring  at  Lady  Curzon, 
wife  of  the  British  Foreign  Secretary,  and  at 
General  Storrs,  the  Military  Governor  of  Pal¬ 
estine,  and  at  the  Patriarch  of  the  Greeks,  as 
the  parties  mounted  to  their  reserved  seats  in 
the  galleries. 

In  the  interstices  between  the  great  pillars 
rose  tier  after  tier  of  wooden  shelves,  loaded 
with  spectators.  It  was  like  the  interior  of 
a  huge,  disorderly  beehive.  F oreigners — 
French,  English,  Germans,  Americans — some 
of  whom  had  paid  ten  English  pounds  for  seats 
at  the  “show,”  looked  down  with  superior, 
amused  smiles  at  the  singing,  sweating  masses 
below.  Again  and  again  above  the  uproar 
came  the  high  shrill  joy-note  of  Arab  women, 
followed  by  unrestrained  cheers  and  applause 
when  their  voices  pleased  the  crowd. 

Back  in  a  dark  corridor,  a  platoon  of  gen¬ 
darmes  waited  with  their  rifles  beside  them. 

The  excitement  became  intense,  centering 
more  and  more  about  the  vents  from  which 
the  Holy  Fire  was  to  issue.  The  Greeks  were 
to  receive  it  from  one  side,  the  Armenians  from 
the  other.  There  would  be  keen  competition  as 


THE  HIGH  CITY 


47 


to  which  “side”  would  carry  a  handful  of 
lighted  tapers  to  the  patriarchs  seated  in  the 
highest  galleries  of  the  church. 

A  Russian  pilgrim  in  blouse  and  barrack 
cap,  grimly  intent  on  remaining  by  the  Ar¬ 
menian  fire  vent,  was  torn  cursing  from  his 
place.  In  a  box  above  me,  a  greasy,  evil¬ 
looking  Greek  drank  vermouth  from  a 
half-liter  bottle.  Another  bottle  stood  on  the 
railing  beside  him.  A  man  in  a  tarbush  was 
throwing  oranges  to  his  clamoring  friends  in 
some  of  the  lower  boxes.  The  oranges  missed 
and  came  down  on  the  heads  of  the  crowd  be¬ 
low.  All  this  within  ten  feet  of  the  sepulchre 
of  Christ.  I  have  mingled  with  too  many 
crowds  to  be  much  affected  by  mass  psychol¬ 
ogy.  I  am  not  easily  stirred  by  irreverence. 
But  I  found  myself  hotly  wishing  that  Sir 
Philip  d’Aubigny,  Knight  of  Christ,  would 
rise  up  from  under  his  cross  beside  the  outer 
door  and  clear  this  place  with  the  flat  of  his 
sword  as  his  Master  had  cleared  another 
temple. 

“Why  do  they  keep  on  observing  rites  like 
these?”  I  asked  of  a  little  English-speaking 
Armenian  priest  with  whom  I  had  been 
talking. 


48 


HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


“All,”  he  said,  “to  stop  is  impossible!  Every 
act,  every  rite  that  we  perform  is  the  result  of 
a  most  bitter  struggle  under  the  Turkish  rule. 
Do  you  see  that  small  washing  basin  over 
there?  We  had  to  have  a  special  firman  from 
the  Sultan  only  to  be  allowed  to  place  it  where 
it  stands.  Every  picture,  every  lamp,  every 
ornament — even  the  columns  of  the  church  be¬ 
long  to  the  various  sects.  It  is  the  same  about 
the  services.  If  we  should  once  fail  to  cele¬ 
brate  a  certain  mass,  we  would  lose  the  right  to 
it  forever.  We  must  keep  on.” 

A  furious  chant  from  the  Hellenic  side  of 
the  church  drowned  out  the  voice  of  the  Ar¬ 
menian  priest.  Just  at  that  moment  an 
altercation  arose  between  an  English  lieu¬ 
tenant-colonel  of  Gendarmes  and  an  unruly 
Greek.  A  fist  flew  out  British-fashion.  In  a 
flash  I  saw  that  crowd  about  me  change  from 
worshipers  to  potential  killers.  With  shouts 
in  their  native  tongue  of  “Get  him!  Get  him!” 
they  surged  forward.  In  the  nick  of  time,  a 
well-dressed  Greek,  evidently  in  authority, 
climbed  bodily  over  the  heads  of  the  others , 
and  waved  them  back  with  a  gesture  of  com¬ 
mand.  In  another  astonishing  moment  the  in¬ 
cident  had  passed,  leaving  a  Greek  nursing  his 


THE  HIGH  CITY 


49 


jaw  and  a  middleclass  Englishman  whose  hand 
trembled  a  little  when  he  gave  some  further  di¬ 
rections  to  his  subordinates. 

Suddenly  the  body  of  an  unkempt,  unshaved 
man  in  vest  and  soiled  shirt  rose  head  and 
shoulders  above  the  blackened  hole  at  the 
shrine.  He  held  a  handkerchief  on  high  and 
watched  the  aperture  with  fanatic  intensity. 
It  was  the  signal.  Silence  .  .  .  intense, 
breathless.  Then — simultaneously  with  a  roar 
from  a  thousand  throats — fire  appeared  in  the 
openings,  the  handkerchief  dashed  down¬ 
ward,  and  the  two  runners  in  stocking  feet 
sprang  with  their  quickly  lighted  candles 
through  the  crowd  toward  the  opposite  stair¬ 
cases. 

A  howling,  shrieking  bedlam.  A  mad  for¬ 
ward  surge  of  the  massed  pilgrims.  With  in¬ 
credible  rapidity  the  fire  blazed  from  the  can¬ 
dles  of  one  group  to  those  of  another.  They 
passed  their  hands  through  the  fire,  laving 
their  faces  and  breasts  with  it.  They  grasped 
handfuls  of  empty  flame  and  pressed  their 
hands  on  their  children’s  heads. 

I  made  my  way  to  the  door.  Around  me 
thronged  these  people  who,  with  shining  faces, 
were  chanting  in  their  ecstasy  because  the  Holy 


50 


HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


Fire  had  come  down  through  Christ’s  tomb, 
from  Heaven.  I  looked  at  those  faces  as  I 
passed.  They  were  rapt,  exalted.  They  be¬ 
lieved  this  trick.  This,  at  the  tomb  of  Christ, 
in  the  year  1922 ! 

Somewhere,  somehow  down  the  ages  be¬ 
tween  the  Nazarene  Carpenter  and  ourselves 
seemed  to  loom  the  shadow  of  a  vast,  unan¬ 
swerable  mistake. 


CHAPTER  IV 

1 

“What  was  that  mistake Vs  My  feet  led  me 
out  of  the  city  by  way  of  the  Damascus  Gate, 
past  the  Governorate  and  up  the  right-hand 
road  to  an  old  rock  tomb  across  from  the  city 
wall.  After  climbing  the  hill  beside  it  and 
walking  through  a  Moslem  cemetery,  I  pres¬ 
ently  found  myself  overlooking  a  small  gar¬ 
den  filled  with  flowers  and  the  rich,  beautifully 
mingled  foliage  of  shrubbery  and  small  trees. 
Silvery  ferns  and  woodbine  spread  over  some 
outcropping  weathered  gray  rocks  at  one  end 
of  the  garden.  Acacia  blossoms  and  hyacinths 
filled  the  air  with  their  fragrance,  and  the 
white  trunks  of  young  birch  trees  glimmered 
through  the  leaves  of  willow  and  Lombardy 
poplar. 

“This  garden,”  said  a  sign  beside  the  door, 
“is  thought  by  many  people  to  be  the  spot 
where  our  Lord  was  placed  after  His  Cruci¬ 
fixion.”  I  had  been  there  before.  And  now  it 
seemed  a  cool  and  lovely  haven  in  which  to 
think  about  the  events  of  the  last  few  hours. 

“  What  was  that  mistake V3 

51 


52  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


But  no  sooner  had  I  asked  the  question  than 
I  thought  to  myself,  “Who  are  you,  with 
your  writing  and  painting,  and  your  rest¬ 
less  wandering  about — who  are  you  to  be 
thinking  and  puzzling  about  the  world’s  mis¬ 
takes?”  Then  something  else  seemed  to  rise 
up  quickly  in  me  and  say,  “No,  no — it’s  all 
right!  It’s  all  right!  The  thing  for  all  of  us 
to  do,  is  to  try  just  as  well  as  we  can  to  see  true. 
The  idea  is  not  to  find  fault,  but  just  to  keep 
on  trying  day  after  day  to  see  true.  Trying 
to  look  at  things  with  as  clear  and  sympathetic 
vision  as  we  can,  and  then  failing  perhaps,  but 
trying  again  and  again.” 

Then,  because  that  answered  my  personal 
misgivings,  I  went  on  thinking,  “What  is  the 
mistake  then,  that  has  occurred  in  the  long  cen¬ 
turies  between  His  time  and  ours?” 

And  as  I  sat  there  above  the  garden  there 
seemed  to  come  an  answer.  That  answer  was 
— man.  Not  any  person  or  age  in  particular, 
not  any  definite  quality  such  as  intolerance  or 
rivalry  or  jealousy.  Just — man.  Always  ex¬ 
pounding  things  to  each  other.  Always  setting 
up  rules.  Always  explaining  God  to  one  an¬ 
other,  with  violence  and  bloodshed  never  very 


THE  HIGH  CITY 


53 


far  away  to  enforce  that  explanation.  “God 
wants  you  to  do  this.”  “Such  a  course  is  di¬ 
rectly  opposed  to  God’s  will.”  “Your  image 
of  God  is  false.  He  is  like  this.” 

D 

2 

Indeed,  I  thought,  that  spirit  played  a  part 
in  the  very  beginnings  of  European  Christian¬ 
ity.  It  is  not  strange  that  Rome  was  distrust¬ 
ful  of  the  new  sect  of  intolerant  Christians  who 
were  not  only  unwilling  to  worship  as  the  em¬ 
peror  did,  but  who  demanded  that  the  emperor 
worship  as  they  did.  That  was  the  danger  to 
the  Empire.  As  early  as  the  second  century, 
Christian  tracts  were  extant  which  made  it 
very  plain  that  no  other  religion  would  be  tol¬ 
erated  if  Christianity  got  control. 

The  Roman  emperors,  in  the  light  of  his¬ 
torical  fact,  were,  on  the  whole,  remarkably 
moderate.  And  what  of  the  bloody  fervor  of 
intolerance  that  swept  mankind  after  Chris¬ 
tianity  became  the  state  religion? 

“God  is  like  this  .  .  .” 

And  all  along  there  existed  that  cumulative 
process  of  extracting  parts  of  other  religions 
and  adding  them  to  the  simple  basis  of  the  N ew 
Testament.  The  substitutions  of  the  third  and 


54 


HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


fourth  centuries — some  of  them  actual  viola¬ 
tions  of  Christ’s  teachings — broke  down  the 
simple,  beautiful  structure  he  had  left  and 
placed  on  it  a  fantastic  formalism  embellished 
with  pagan  ornaments — one  of  which  1  had 
seen  not  an  hour  earlier  beside  his  own  Sepul¬ 
chre! 

No  wonder  that  the  Inquisition  followed, 
and  the  various  savage  edicts,  and  all  the  rest. 
Man  enchained — but  not  by  the  Christianity 
of  Christ.  What  had  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
to  do  with  these  things?  Man  was  not  bother¬ 
ing  then  about  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount. 
That  was  “hidden  under  the  illuminated  missal 
of  the  Athanasian  Creed.” 

Then  came  the  Scholiasts  hunting  down 
Christ’s  simplest,  most  straightforward  state¬ 
ments  for  metaphysical  meanings  which  no  two 
men  might  understand.  Talismans,  amulets, 
charms.  There  were  times  in  the  fifteenth  cen¬ 
tury  when  to  express  doubt  in  Jonah-and-the- 
whale  was  to  sign  one’s  death  warrant.  Simi¬ 
larly,  the  first  man  who  made  umbrellas  in 
England  was  severely  rebuked  for  interfering 
with  the  work  of  Providence.  God  intended  us 
to  get  wet.  That,  of  course,  meant  that  some 
one  had  God’s  ear  on  the  subject. 


THE  HIGH  CITY 


55 


We  smile — but  why?  Only  a  hundred  years 
ago,  here  in  the  United  States,  it  was  cus¬ 
tomary  for  certain  sects  to  bury  children  who 
had  not  been  baptized  in  the  far  corner  of  the 
cemetery  so  that  they  would  not  contaminate 
the  other  dead.  This  in  spite  of  the  fact  that 
he  said  as  plainly  as  words  can  say,  “Unless 
ye  be  as  a  little  child.  .  .  .” 

And  to-day?  Ah,  yes — to-day.  Why,  for 
example,  is  there  still  a  stigma  attached  to  the 
term  “Free  Thinker”?  Because  about  sixty 
years  ago  a  body  of  intelligent  men  refused  to 

believe  exactly  as  our  great-grandfathers  did. 
•  ••••••• 

The  sun  was  sinking.  A  warm  light  played 
among  the  willows  and  poplars,  shining  on 
their  silvery  leaves  and  turning  the  white 
hyacinth  tops  to  chalices  of  gold.  To  see 
true !  That,  I  knew,  certainly  did  not 
mean  leaving  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepul¬ 
chre  as  I  had  done,  disgusted  and  repelled.  I 
had  not  been  able  to  work  back  far  enough 
from  the  things  about  me.  The  Syrian  or 
Copt  who  seemed  to  desecrate  the  place  by 
tossing  oranges  to  his  friends  might  in  his 
way  have  had  much  more  reverence  than  I. 
He,  at  least,  was  thinking  of  his  friends,  while 


56  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


I  was  annoyed  because  my  particular  Prot¬ 
estant  ideas  of  how  to  behave  in  a  church  were 
upset.  The  bottle  of  vermouth  probably 
meant  no  more  to  the  Greek  who  brought  it  in 
than  so  much  water  would  have  meant  to  me. 
A  very  real  and  radiant  exultation  had  shone 
on  the  faces  of  the  pilgrims.  Why  had  I  been 
affected  by  their  joy  no  more  than  if  they  had 
been  vague  ghosts,  grinning  and  gibbering  in 
some  evil  dream?  (Is  not  the  first  necessity  for 
seeing  true,  the  capacity  for  appreciating  and 
understanding  emotions  which  we  do  not  feel?) 

But  suddenly  my  mind  carried  me  to  the  in¬ 
side  of  the  Sepulchre  itself;  and  I  saw  that  ter¬ 
rible  progression  of  a  thousand  years  of  black- 
frocked  priests,  some  with  fat,  beastly 
paunches,  others  with  heads  like  skulls,  leaning 
over  the  very  tomb  of  Christ  and  manipulating 
for  these  poor  people  the  “Holy  Fire.” 

Holy!  And  then  my  anger  surged  up  again, 
and  I  sat  alone  above  that  place  where  Christ 
may  very  well  have  lain,  raging  intolerantly 
against  other  men — I,  who  a  moment  before, 
had  been  thinking  so  calmly  about  tolerance 
and  the  need  for  seeing  true. 

Then,  as  I  sat  there  feeling  quite  miserable 
and  beaten,  the  night  came  down. 


CHAPTER  V 


1 

I  could  not  sleep.  The  small  room  in  the 
hotel  seemed  to  be  holding  me,  binding  me 
down.  Toward  morning,  I  made  my  way 
through  the  long  lounge,  past  a  glimpse  of  the 
church,  down  to  the  silent  street.  The  moon 
flooded  the  Muristan  with  a  white  beauty.  An 
occasional  dim  oil  light  flickered  above  the 
dark,  empty  bazaars.  Overhead  the  night 
spread  clear  and  lovely ;  and  up  the  side  streets 
small  vistas,  dusted  with  a  pattern  of  stars, 
gleamed  with  the  richness  of  ancient  cobalt 
enamels  through  the  black  arches. 

At  my  approach,  a  soldier  stepped  out  of 
the  guardhouse  to  the  right  of  the  Damascus 
gate,  looked  at  me  curiously,  and  said  some¬ 
thing  in  Arabic  about  Beduins.  I  nodded  my 
thanks.  But  it  would  take  more  than  the 
thought  of  a  few  fanatic  Arabs  to  turn  me 
back.  Unconsciously,  I  knew  where  I  was  go¬ 
ing.  On  past  the  garden  of  the  afternoon, 
down  the  white  road  to  the  valley  of  the 
Kedron. 


57 


58 


HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


2 

Moonlight  lay  like  a  white  mist  over  Geth- 
semane.  The  little  priory  above  the  garden 
was  asleep.  The  three  green  shutters  at  the 
front  and  the  two  at  the  side  were  tightly 
closed.  I  smiled,  thinking  of  the  other  French 
houses  from  Marseilles  to  the  Belgian  fron¬ 
tier,  all  shut  just  as  tightly  against  the  night 
air  as  this  one.  The  small  iron  door  in  the  high 
wall  was  closed  too,  but  a  few  paces  beyond  lay 
the  ruined  foundations  of  an  old  church,  with 
a  low  wall  from  which  one  could  see  the  Gar¬ 
den.  Just  before  me  was  the  place  where 
Brother  Julio  said  that  the  three  had  slept 
— Peter,  James,  and  the  Beloved  Disciple. 
And  there,  with  a  black  cypress  cutting  the 
sky  behind  it,  was  the  tree  of  the  Master. 


3 

Above  the  tops  of  the  cypresses  a  change  be¬ 
gan.  From  cobalt  to  indigo.  From  indigo  to 
the  faintest  rose.  Indescribable  and  magnifi¬ 
cent — God’s  daily  miracle.  And  now,  back 
across  the  years,  Mary  Magdalene  would  be 
coming  up  the  hill  outside  the  city  wall,  with 
white,  grief -stricken  face  raised  toward  an 


THE  HIGH  CITY 


59 


empty  sepulchre.  And  in  a  few  moments  more 
she  would  be  asking  of  Some  One  who  was 

standing  there,  “Are  you  the  gardener?” 

•  •••••• 

I  thought  of  waiting  there  for  the  dawn, 
but  the  cold  was  striking  in.  I  looked  up. 
Above  the  hillside  rose  the  height  of  Olivet. 
The  road  was  steep,  in  some  places  formed  by 
the  outcropping  rock.  Up  and  up  it  led,  be¬ 
tween  stone  walls,  up  past  a  vast  cemetery, 
each  grave  a  flat  oblong  of  masonry  capped 
with  a  gray  stone. 

At  a  turn  I  looked  back  at  the  city — majes¬ 
tic,  immemorial  walls.  Off  to  the  left,  above 
the  village  of  Siloam,  the  early  rays  of  the  sun 
rested  upon  the  hilltops,  but  Jerusalem  still 
lay  in  the  shadow  of  Olivet.  Dawn.  And  this 
dawn  was — Easter! 

What  pinnacle,  I  wondered,  would  first  take 
the  light?  The  great  French  convent?  The 
five-domed  Russian  church?  The  Mosque  of 
Omar?  No,  none  of  these.  The  Jaffa  Gate! 
The  sultan’s  turret,  caught  in  a  noose  of  light. 

Again — I  do  not  know  why — I  thought  of 
the  priests  in  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepul¬ 
chre.  And  all  at  once  they  no  longer  seemed 
to  be  mere  mimetic  figures  wearing  grotesque, 


60 


HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


horrible  masks,  but  human  beings.  Human 
beings  capable  like  the  rest  of  us  of  suffering 
and  happiness — and  love.  .  .  .  Then,  at 

that  moment,  I  knew  I  had  found  the  answer 
to  my  questioning — His  answer :  Love.  I 

-  -sa*** , 

looked  down  at  the  garden  where  Brother 
Julio  and  the  others  still  slept.  How  strange 
and  how  wonderful  to  know  that  all  over  the 
world  there  are  people  who,  without  ever 
meeting  and  without  speaking  a  common 
language,  understand  each  other  through  that 
great  principle  we  call  love.  And  now  the 
hilltops  to  the  farthest  horizon  thrilled  with 
the  awakening  day.  In  spite  of  the  Great 
War,  in  spite  of  the  Great  Unrest,  dawn  had 
come  to  the  waiting  world  just  as  before. 

Up  from  the  Bethany  road,  through  fields  of 
poppies  and  meadow  violets,  a  glad  message 
seemed  to  ascend:  He  is  risen !  Beyond  the 
haze  of  incense.  Beyond  the  mist  of  battle. 


THOMAS  SPEAKS 


I  touched  him  not!  I  only  raised  my  hand! 
“Thomas”  he  said ,  “behold  thou  me” ;  and 
then 

He  turned  his  calm,  beloved  face  to  mine. 

And  all  the  ache  because  I  thought  him  dead 
Dropped  like  a  shroud .  He  lived!  And  then 
the  shame 

Of  having  doubted,  gripped  me  and  1  fled 
Stumbling  and  weeping  down  the  Kedron 
road . 


•  ••••••• 

Whither,  I  know  not .  But  the  night  came 
down 

And  somewhere  1  found  sleep  beneath  the  sky. 
•  ••••••• 

Straightway ,  I  dreamed  he  stood  by  me  and 
spoke : 

“ Thomas ,  upon  a  hill  near  Bethany 
I  heard  thee  say  thou  wouldst  have  died  for 
me. 

I  know  thy  love,  and  well  1  know  the  spear 
That  pierced  thee  too.  .  .  .  Grieve  not .  .  . 

•  ••••••• 

I  woke,  and  dawn  lay  white  on  Olivet , 

And  peace  was  in  my  heart;  and  overhead 
A  woodlark  sang  one  high,  clear  note  of  joy 
Upon  a  treetop  in  Gethsemane. 


INTERLUDE 


t 


CHAPTER  VI 


1 

When  time  permitted,  Koren  and  I  walked 
about  the  city  together,  much  to  my  advantage. 
The  Near  East  was  an  open  book  to  him.  It 
was  only  an  opening  book  to  me.  But  slowly, 
from  the  shadowy  progression  of  Oriental 
images,  new  impressions  were  forming.  Once 
or  twice  when  we  walked  together  Koren 
spoke  about  his  work.  He  was  employed,  he 
said,  by  a  firm  in  Damascus  which  made  the 
tapestry,  and  inlaid  ware  of  ivory  and  ebony 
and  mother-of-pearl  for  which  the  city  is  fa¬ 
mous.  There  were  branches  all  over  Syria  and 
Palestine. 

“Just  now  I  am  going  about  seeing  the  dif¬ 
ferent  magasins  of  the  fabrique  in  many  differ¬ 
ent  cities.  Sometimes  when  I  see  a  thing  that 
may  be  changed,  I  say,  ‘Cannot  you  change 
this?’  Some  day  I  would  wish  very  much  to 
become  chief  inspector.  Then  I  may  even  go 
so  far  as  Bagdad!” 

“You  seem  to  be  very  fond  of  traveling, 
Koren,”  I  said. 


65 


60 


HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


“Yes — I  must  always  be  traveling,”  he  an¬ 
swered.  “I  must  ”  And  a  pained  look  came 
into  his  face  which  at  the  time  I  did  not  under¬ 
stand.  “If  you  will  excuse  me,  I  shall  now  do 
some  things  about  my  work.” 

And  he  was  off.  I  too  remembered  a  sketch 
I  wished  to  make  beyond  the  Kedron. 


2 

An  old  Arab  gardener  posed  for  me,  stand¬ 
ing  with  his  watering-pot  over  a  bed  of  flowers. 
As  I  was  “laying  him  in”  with  charcoal. 
Brother  Julio  came  up  behind  me  accompanied 
by  a  younger  and  more  energetic  Franciscan. 

“Why  don’t  you  do  this  one?”  said  the  lat¬ 
ter,  pointing  to  Brother  Julio.  “He  is  a  fine 
type.”  And  he  spread  out  Julio’s  beard,  and 
patted  him  with  the  pride  of  a  connoisseur 
showing  a  Franz  Hals  or  a  Rembrandt. 
“When  Jean  Sargent,  the  painter,  was  here, 
he  made  a  sketch  of  him,  and  later  he  sent  him 
a  photograph  of  the  sketch.  It  is  inside. 
Would  you  like  to  see  it?” 

The  little  reception  room  in  the  priory,  to 
the  left  of  the  hall,  was  filled  with  autographed 
pictures  of  distinguished  visitors,  past  and 


INTERLUDE 


67 


present.  Franz  Josef,  the  King  of  Italy,  Al¬ 
fonso  of  Spain,  several  grand  dukes  of  Rus¬ 
sia — and  here,  in  a  place  of  honor,  was  a 
photograph  with  “To  Brother  Julio  from  John 
Sargent”  in  a  firm,  powerful  hand  across  it. 
The  picture  showed  a  bit  of  the  garden,  with 
the  old  monk  in  the  foreground  holding  a 
branch  from  the  oldest  olive  tree  which  had 
been  grafted  on  to  a  younger,  straighter  sap- 
ling. 

“Dites  done !  You  should  make  a  sketch  of 
him  too!”  urged  the  energetic  brother.  “Le 
visage  n’est  pas  mal  du  tout ,  aims!” 

But  Brother  Julio  did  not  seem  to  share  the 
other’s  enthusiasm.  “How  long  would  it 
take?”  he  inquired,  mildly. 

“Oh,  I  might  be  able  to  do  something  in  an 
hour.” 

“An  hour?”  Brother  Julio’s  hand  crept 
around  to  his  back,  and  I  saw  trouble  come  into 
his  kindly  old  eyes.  “ Aloi's  ”  he  said,  “I  am 
no  longer  young.  Jean  Sargent  took  only — 
five  minutes!” 

The  younger  Franciscan  looked  at  me  and 
smiled.  “ Mon  vieiwc’’  he  said,  patting  the 
other  on  the  back,  “but  in  all  the  world,  there 
is  only  one  Jean  Sargent!” 


68 


HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


He  was  right.  There  is  only  one  John  Sar¬ 
gent.  As  for  me,  I  went  back  to  my  humble 
beginnings  with  the  gardener.  So,  if  you  go 
to  Gethsemane,  you  may  safely  ask  to  see  the 
sketch  of  Brother  Julio.  There  is  only  one. 
It  is  a  good  one  and  it  is  signed,  “John  Sar¬ 
gent.” 

•  ••••••• 


3 

I  first  met  Mohammed  Jamel  on  the  top  of 
Olivet.  He  trudged  along  beside  me,  making 
true  though  not  particularly  original  remarks 
about  the  weather.  Then  he  referred  to  the 
landscape.  I  did  not  care  about  being  shown 
the  landscape,  and  I  told  him  so  in  that  deter¬ 
mined  manner  which  must  be  the  reflex  of  an 
inner  quailing. 

A  Palestine  guide  knows  all  that.  He  is 
playing  a  little  game  with  you.  If  he  says, 
“That  is  Bethpage  over  there,”  and  you  refuse 
to  look,  you  owe  him  nothing.  But  if  you  shift 
so  much  as  a  single  eyebrow  in  the  direction 
he  has  designated,  then  you  are  in  his  power. 
It  ended  by  his  taking  me  gently  but  firmly, 
like  a  stubborn  schoolboy,  to  the  top  of  the 
Russian  convent,  where  the  view  is  magnifi- 


INTERLUDE 


69 


cent.  Jerusalem,  the  Jordan,  the  Dead  Sea, 
Bethany,  Bethlehem,  lay  before  us. 

“ ‘Isn’t  there  an  exceedingly  old  monastery 
somewhere  off  there  in  the  wilderness  toward 
the  Dead  Sea?”  I  asked. 

Mohammed  Jamel  sprang  to  the  rail.  “I 
know!  Yes,  yes.  The  name — Mar  Saba.  You 
see  that  white  streak?  Good!  You  see  that 
green  spot?  Beyond  it  is  the  monastery.” 

“What  is  the  best  way  to  get  there?” 

“Ah,  you  must  take  donkeys.  There  is  no 
carriage  road.  You  must  start  before  morn¬ 
ing,  very  early — perhaps  two  o’clock — then 
you  will  get  there  in  four  hours,  before  the  sun 
is  too  hot.” 

“What  language  do  the  monks  speak?” 

“Greek.  A  few  speak  Turkish.  I  think 
there  is  one  can  speak  English.” 

“Would  it  be  possible  to  walk  alone  from 
the  monastery  to  the  Dead  Sea?” 

He  looked  at  me  aghast.  “Alone?  Oh  no. 
You  can’t  do  that!  There  are  plenty  of  rob¬ 
bers  just  now.  Last  week,  even  on  the  Jericho 
road,  a  motor  car  was  taken  by  Beduins  with 
four  Englishmen  in  it.  They  shot  the  tires; 
then  they  took  away  everything  they  had — 
money,  clothes,  watches.” 


I 


70  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 

“That  does  not  speak  very  well  for  the 
police.” 

“Ah — these  Beduins — the  police  can  t  do 
much  with  them.  They  are  of  the  desert.  They 
know  only  the  desert  law.  They  make  what 
they  wish ;  then  they  are  away,  across  the  J or- 
dan  into  the  desert.  There  is  too  much  danger. 
I  would  not  walk  alone  from  Mar  Saba  to  the 
Dead  Sea  myself.” 

With  this  information,  I  went  back  to  the 
city. 

•  ••••••• 


4 

From  the  side  of  the  wall  near  the  ceiling, 
two  small  iron  I-beams  extended  side  by  side  a 
foot  into  my  room.  The  builders  no  doubt  had 
intended  the  beams  to  be  imbedded  in  the  floor 
above,  but  had  missed  it  by  a  few  inches. 
(After  all,  what  are  a  few  inches  in  the  Near 
East!)  In  the  hollow  between  the  beams  was 
— most  surprising  of  bedroom  furniture — a 
nest! 

Of  the  couple  that  inhabited  it  the  female 
was  more  devastating  than  the  male.  Even 
from  the  beginning,  she  made  an  unthinkable 
din  fussing  around  and  continually  flying  in 


INTERLUDE 


71 


and  out.  The  male  spent  most  of  his  time  on 
a  shutter  outside  the  window.  He,  at  least, 
had  a  certain  delicacy  about  making  himself 
chez  lui  in  another  man’s  bedroom. 

I  think  that  he  too  suffered.  Of  course  we 
could  both  see  her  point  of  view.  The  nest 
was  hers  and  she  had  built  it.  It  was  her  home ! 
If  she  wanted  to  bustle  in  and  out — what  of 
it?  Her  mate  ought  to  be  ashamed  of  himself 
for  holding  back.  As  for  that  man  down  be¬ 
low — ! ! 

The  room  would  have  been  a  bonanza  for  an 
ornithologist.  Without  half  trying,  and  with 
no  bird  experience  at  all,  I  was  able  to  recog¬ 
nize  no  less  than  six  distinctive  calls.  First 
there  was  the  small,  fretful  chee  chee  of  dis¬ 
content  when  the  window  was  closed.  Then 
there  was  a  sort  of  gentle  warble-of-the-good- 
life  from  the  shutter  top — like  some  one  who 
cannot  carry  a  tune  trying  to  whistle  the  Bell 
Song  from  Lakme.  Then  there  was  the  loud, 
clear  call  of  greeting  from  the  female  on  the 
iron  beam  to  her  mate  on  the  shutter  top.  As 
soon  as  the  answer  came,  the  female  would  im¬ 
mediately  respond  with  a  joyful  note,  loud  and 
clear  as  a  fire  whistle. 

“Hello,  are  you  there?” 


72 


HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


“Yes,  I’m  here  on  the  shutter  (where  I  be¬ 
long) 

‘  Oh  good!  Come  on  in!  It’s  all  right — he’s 
in  bed.” 

“Are  you  sure?” 

“Yes,  sure.”  Then,  whir-r-r-r — chug-chug- 
chug — and  the  perilous  passage  was  made. 

Still  another  call  was  a  harsh,  angry  note  of 
protest  against  the  presence  of  any  other  un¬ 
attached  gentlemen  of  sympathetic  nature.  At 
such  times  the  male  was  on  his  own  ground. 
No  hesitation  now.  He  did  not  stop  to  take 
off  his  coat  or  roll  up  his  sleeves.  He  just 
waded  right  in  without  consulting  Hoyle  or 
the  Marquis  of  Queensbury.  I  had  no  com¬ 
plaint  to  make  about  that.  .  .  . 

5 

But  gradually,  day  by  day,  the  uproar  in¬ 
creased.  Perhaps  the  subduing  influence  of 
my  presence  was  wearing  off.  At  any  rate, 
the  female  would  start  in  every  morning  at 
four-thirty  with  a  most  fiendish,  raucous 
screaming  to  her  mate  on  the  shutter — a  regu¬ 
lar  Dame  Van  Winkle!  The  four-thirty  up¬ 
roar  seemed  to  be  the  whistle  by  which  he  went 
to  work.  He  brought  in  the  girders  and 


INTERLUDE 


73 


stanchions  for  additions  to  the  nest,  while  she 
stood  by  and  screamed  in  his  ear  and  mine. 

If  she  were  like  this  now,  I  thought,  good 
heavens,  what  would  she  be  when  she  became 
a  mother!  I  could  foresee  that  she  would  be 
using  my  toothbrush  glass  to  bathe  the  infants 
in  and  be  complaining  because  the  tempera¬ 
ture  was  not  right.  So  one  morning  as  I 
looked  at  several  new  gray  hairs  in  the  early 
half-light,  I  made  up  my  mind.  I  procured  a 
ladder  and  set  it  up  against  the  wall.  Next  I 
took  an  empty  box  which  had  contained  three 
tubes,  studio  size,  of  Windsor  &  Newton’s 
Permanent  Blue,  and,  with  the  idea  of  closing 
up  the  house  in  the  I-beam,  I  climbed  the 
ladder. 

Too  late!  In  the  bottom  of  the  nest  lay 
three  small,  speckled  eggs.  Too  late!  I 
climbed  down  again  and  sat  on  the  bed  with 
my  head  in  my  hands,  while  she  roared  at  me 
from  the  window  to  “take  that  ladder  awav 
this  instant.’5  I  did  not  dare  to  ask  Saliba 
Abrahim  Said,  who  is  the  proprietor  of  the 
Saint  John  Hotel,  for  another  room.  He 
would  probably  have  chucked  the  whole  estab¬ 
lishment,  children  and  all,  into  the  street  and 
thought  nothing  more  about  it.  Yet  what  was 


74 


HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


I  to  do?  There  are  some  kinds  of  work  which 
absolutely  cannot  be  done  in  an  aviary. 

Koren  finally  saved  the  day.  “My  room  is 
large.  Please,  if  you  wish,  come  into  it.  We 
will  ask  Saliba  for  another  bed.”  And  would 
you  believe  it? — as  I  moved  my  few  lares  et 
penates  from  one  room  to  the  other,  that  un¬ 
speakable  bird — you  know  which  one  I  mean 
— sat  on  the  I-beam  and  shrieked  a  fulsome 
song  of  victory! 


6 

Across  the  eastern  end  of  the  city  lies  that 
great  walled  enclosure,  the  Haram  es-Sherif 
— the  indisputable  site  of  Solomon’s  temple. 
Here,  beyond  doubt,  were  the  massive  brazen 
pillars,  the  “molten  sea,”  the  altar  for  burnt 
offering.  And  here,  the  orthodox  Jew  of  to¬ 
day  never  enters  lest  he  commit  the  deadly 
sin  of  treading  on  holy  ground. 

In  Herod’s  time  the  enclosure  was  sur¬ 
rounded  by  double  rows  of  immense  columns. 
These  are  gone  now,  but  the  various  mosques, 
minarets,  and  Moslem  schools  which  face  the 
vast  quadrangle  are  relieved  by  decorative 
groups  of  cypresses.  In  the  center  of  the 


INTERLUDE 


75 


great  square  rises  that  magnificent  mosque  of 
mosques,  the  Dome  of  the  Rock,  sometimes 
called  the  Mosque  of  Omar.  The  exterior  is 
marble  below,  and  old  Persian  tiles  above — 
jade-green,  turquoise,  and  peacock  blue — with 
the  high  gray  dome  rising  overhead. 

But  it  is  the  interior  that  is  worth  coming 
far  to  see.  One  might  imagine  that  some 
prince  of  the  Arabian  Nights  had  called  his 
genii  together  and  said:  k ‘Build  me  a  costly 
temple  of  many  angles — a  temple  of  intricate 
design  with  a  dome  thereto.  And  let  the  in¬ 
terior  be  as  the  groves  of  a  marble  forest.  And 
let  the  leaves  of  the  forest  be  of  sapphire  and 
emerald,  and  the  fruit  of  ruby  and  amethyst, 
with  the  mellow  light  of  day  entering  softly 
beneath  a  dome  of  lapis  lazuli  upon  gold-in- 
crusted  walls.”  On  a  wide  blue  band  beneath 
the  cornice,  in  letters  of  gold,  some  verses  from 
the  Koran  appear  in  which  Mohammed  ac¬ 
knowledges  Christ  but  repudiates  his  relation¬ 
ship  to  God  except  as  an  ambassador. 

“The  Messiah  Jesus  is  only  the  son  of  Mary, 
the  ambassador  of  God.  .  .  .  Believe,  then, 
in  God  and  his  ambassador  and  do  not  main¬ 
tain  there  are  three.  If  you  refrain  from  this 
it  will  be  better  for  you.  God  is  One  .  . 


76  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


The  young,  white-turbaned  mufti  who  was 
my  guide  left  me  for  a  few  moments.  In  the 
broad-soled  slippers  which  had  been  tied  over 
my  heathen  shoes,  I  wandered  about  looking 
at  the  interlacing  pillars,  the  gold  mosaics,  and 
the  huge,  gray  rock  rising  six  feet  above  the 
floor  in  the  center  of  the  mosque.  Here  Abra¬ 
ham,  earliest  of  the  Jews,  prepared  to  sacri¬ 
fice  Isaac.  Here  the  later  Jews  erected  their 
Temple  and  made  burnt  offerings.  And  here 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  must  often  have  come. 
Mohammed  declared  that  one  prayer  at  this 
place  was  worth  a  thousand  elsewhere.  Later 
the  Crusaders  built  an  altar  upon  the  rock; 
while  at  present  over  the  same  spot  are  the 
Byzantine  capitals  with  their  encircling  Mo¬ 
hammedan  inscription  about  Christ. 

From  the  standpoint  of  single  religions 
there  are  other  places,  such  as  the  Kaaba  at 
Mecca  and  the  Church  of  the  Holy  Sepulchre, 
which  are  held  more  sacred  than  this.  But 
from  the  standpoint  of  all  it  is  the  most  highly 
venerated  spot  in  the  world.  Mohammed,  in 
his  religion,  Islam,  accepted  a  great  part  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testaments  and  para¬ 
phrased  them  in  the  Koran.  The  Moslems — 
believers  in  Islam — reverence  Adam,  Noah, 


INTERLUDE 


77 


Abraham,  Moses,  John  the  Baptist,  and 
Jesus  Christ  as  prophets.  The  latter’s  teach¬ 
ings  are  commended  in  the  Koran,  although,  as 
the  quotations  above  the  mosque  tell  us,  he  is 
not  acknowledged  as  the  Son  of  God. 

White-bearded  sheiks  sat  in  the  doorways 
of  the  mosque,  repeating  the  ninety-nine  names 
of  God,  and  the  most  sacred  name,  Allah . 
It  was  the  month  of  Ramadan  in  which  true 
believers  do  not  break  their  fast  between  sun¬ 
rise  and  sunset.  In  another  half  hour,  the 
muezzins  from  their  stations  in  the  minarets 
would  be  calling  the  faithful  to  prayer. 

“To-day  is  a  big  day  with  us,”  said  the 
young  mufti ,  as  he  accompanied  me  to  the  por¬ 
tal  of  the  great  enclosure.  “It  is  the  fifteenth 
of  Ramadan And  he  related  how  on  that 
night,  a  little  after  sunset,  the  great  Sudrah 
tree  in  Paradise  is  shaken.  Each  of  its  leaves 
bears  the  name  of  some  one  who  lives  upon 
this  earth.  The  leaves  of  those  who  must  die 
the  following  year  will  surely  fall. 

“May  your  leaf  be  young  and  firm,”  I  said, 
as  we  shook  hands  at  the  door.  His  answer 
was  exactly  what  I  had  hoped. 

“ Kismet  ”  he  said. 


. 


KOREN 


I 


/ 


t 


CHAPTER  VII 


1 

Kor£n  came  into  the  hotel  lounge  his  face 
alight  with  enthusiasm.  “My  employer  has 
come  to-day,”  he  said.  “He  is  too  much 
pleased  with  what  I  have  been  doing.  He 
says  I  shall  be  inspector  of  all  Syria  and  Pal¬ 
estine!”  He  threw  down  his  tarbush  and  stick 
and  clapped  jubilantly  for  coffee. 

“Good!  That  is  just  what  you  wanted,  isn’t 
it?” 

“Yes,  it  is  what  I  wanted.  To  go  about  is 
my  nature.  Why  not?  My  ancestors  were 
from  the  Caucasus — soldiers  and  kavass.  .  . 
But  not  such  kavass  as  you  see  along  the  street 
in  Jerusalem  thumping  with  their  sticks  to 
clear  the  way  for  the  consuls.  They  were  the 
kavass  of  the  caravans.” 

Suddenly  he  became  silent,  with  one  of 
those  quick.  Oriental  changes  in  mood  with 
which  I  had  become  familiar.  A  moment  be¬ 
fore  he  had  been  gay,  buoyant.  Now  he  was 
depressed.  The  strained,  hurt  look  which  I 

81 


82  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


had  seen  before  came  into  his  face.  “In  the 
old  days,  I  used  to  wish  to  fight  as  they  did. 
But  now  it  is  different.  Even  if  I  should  meet 
the  man  who  killed  my  father,  I  could  not 
harm  him.  Why?  I  do  not  know.  Some 
change  has  come  over  my  character.  My  con¬ 
science  would  be  too  terrible  afterward.” 

“By  the  way,  Koren,”  I  said  to  take  him 
away  from  these  somber  thoughts,  “I  would 
like  to  get  some  Armenian  names.  Some 
simple  ones  that  are  really  Armenian.” 

“With  pleasure,”  he  said,  brightening  im¬ 
mediately.  “Names  of  men?” 

“Yes.  Women’s  names  too.  Start  with 
men  if  you  like.” 

“Sarkis;  Aram;  Minas ;  my  name,  Koren 
Ara;  Bedros;  Khosrov;  Vartan .  To  make 
some  last  names,  you  can  add  ian .  One  man 
can  be  Vartan  Sarkiszcm.  Another  man  can 
be  Sarkis  Vartanian.  It  is  like  Frederick 
Johannson,  and  Johann  Frederickson.  .  . 

“For  girls,  there  are  the  names  Araksi; 
Nazeli;  Oznive;  Mari;  Arovni.  .  .  ” 

“Arovni — that  is  a  nice  name,”  I  said  as  I 
wrote.  But  I  do  not  think  he  heard  me.  He 
sat  looking  far  away,  twisting  his  watch  chain 
between  nervous,  energetic  fingers.  Suddenly 


KOREN 


83 


he  burst  out,  “What  have  I  done?  Why  should 
society  stand  against  me  because  I  care  for 
some  one!  And  my  brother  beyond  others, 
why  should  he  try  to  prevent  me?  You  won¬ 
der,  perhaps,  why  I  am  gloomy.  It  is  not  my 
temper  that  is  always  too  bad.  There  is  so 
much  else.  .  .  .” 

“Why  don’t  you  tell  me  about  it?”  I  said. 
“Whatever  you  tell  will  be  safe,  unless  you 
say  that  it  may  be  told.”1  He  looked  at  me 
closely,  scanning  my  face  with  dark,  eager 
eyes. 

“When  shall  you  go  to  Bethlehem?”  he 
asked,  for  I  had  told  him  my  plans. 

“The  day  after  to-morrow,”  I  answered. 
He  took  a  turn  or  two  up  and  down  the  lounge, 
then  stopped  before  me. 

“I  shall  do  it,”  he  said.  “In  two  days  I  too 
must  go  away — to  Damascus.  To-morrow 
evening,  if  you  like,  we  will  come  back  to  the 
hotel  from  work  and  I  shall  tell  you.” 

So  I  heard  Koren’s  story  (as  much  of  it  as 
was  finished,  for  it  was  still  in  the  making)  — 
a  story  as  beautiful  as  Paola  and  Francesca , 
as  quaint  and  other-worldly  as  Aucassin  and 


JThis  narrative  is  printed  with  the  permission  of  my  friend. 


84  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


Nicolette.  If  you  do  not  feel  its  poignancy 
and  its  charm,  then  the  fault  is  mine,  in  the 
telling. 


2 

“We  lived  in  central  Anatolia  in  the  town 
of  Gurun.  My  father  was  a  strong  man  in 
the  town.  All  men  respected  him.  He  was 
strict,  but  his  love  was  great.  When  I  was 
fourteen  he  called  me  to  him  and  said:  ‘Koren, 
you  are  a  grown  boy  now.  I  shall  send  you 
away  to  school,  to  a  good  school  in  Harput, 
near  the  Euphrates.’  Six  days  we  journeyed 
by  horseback  to  Harput.  I  remained  there 
something  more  than  a  year.  Then  came 
1915 — the  Great  War,  the  fighting  between 
Russia  and  Turkey. 

“It  was  in  the  month  of  April  that  the 
school  was  closed.  I  wrote  to  my  father, 
‘What  shall  I  do?’  He  sent  a  man  with  swift 
horses,  and  after  two  days  we  arrived  at  home, 
where  I  was  hidden  away — for  if  the  Turks 
found  me,  they  would  hurry  me  to  the  front. 
One  day  in  May  the  soldiers  came  and  took 
all  the  men  of  Gurun  to  prison.  They  took 
my  father  and  my  sister’s  husband,  who  was 


KGREM 


85 


twenty-five  years.  They  took  my  older 
brother,  who  was  visiting  us  from  Aleppo.  But 
the  archbishop  of  Gurun,  a  great  friend  of 
my  father,  went  to  the  Turkish  governor,  and 
speaking  about  my  brother,  said:  ‘This  man 
does  not  belong  to  Gurun,  but  to  another 
province.  You  must  let  him  go  away.5  Then 
they  freed  my  brother,  and  he  went  away  to 
his  wife  and  children  in  Aleppo. 

“But  my  father  and  brother-in-law  were  in 
prison  with  all  the  men  of  Gurun.  From 
prison  my  father  sent  a  letter  to  me  on  a  small 
piece  of  paper.  I  think  he  knew  what  would 
happen.  The  letter  came  just  as  I  had  my 
sixteenth  birthday: 

“Dear  Kor^n: 

“I  am  going  away ;  where  I  do  not  know.  You  are 
the  man  of  the  family  now.  They  are  all  depend¬ 
ing  on  you.  [Then  he  mentioned  them  all — my 
mother,  my  old  grandmother,  my  two  young  sisters, 
also  my  older  married  sister  and  her  four  children.] 
You  must  take  good  care.  Lock  the  doors  at  night 
and  watch,  that  all  is  well.  There  is  the  fabrique. 
[For  we  made  good  hand-woven  cloth.]  If  it  should 
be  that  you  need  something,  sell  the  goods  of  the 
fabrique.  God  be  with  you.  I  kiss  each  one. 

“Your  Father. 


86 


HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


3 

“The  Turkish  captain  of  gendarmes  was  a 
friend.  Often  he  came  to  dine  with  us  and 
told  us  about  the  affairs  in  the  town.  One 
day  he  came  very  sadly  and  said,  ‘The  sol¬ 
diers  are  taking  the  men  away.’  The  next  day 
the  soldiers  took  the  men  out  along  the  road — 
seven  thousand  from  the  town  of  fifteen  thou¬ 
sand  people — -and  killed  them.  They  killed 
my  father  and  my  sister’s  husband.  I  do  not 
know  how.  .  .  . 

“Then  the  captain  of  gendarmes  came  again. 
He  was  weeping  and  said:  ‘Koren,  to-morrow 
they  are  coming  back.  They  will  search  all 
the  houses.  If  there  is  a  boy  older  than  a 
young  child,  they  will  kill  him.  But  about 
you,  I  have  given  your  father  my  word.’  Then 
he  took  me  to  the  appartement  of  his  wife — 
something  which  no  Turk  will  ever  do,  espe¬ 
cially  with  a  Christian.  ‘You  shall  stay  here,’ 
he  said.  ‘You  see  that  I  trust  you.’ 

“For  three  days  I  stayed  at  the  harem ,  until 
the  search  was  finished.  But  when  I  came 
home  I  found  the  women  weeping  and  gather¬ 
ing  some  of  our  things  together.  We  had  been 
exiled  and  must  go  away  at  once.  We  took 
fifteen  horses — eleven  for  us  (for  there  was 


KOREN 


87 


also  a  nurse),  and  four  for  the  baggage,  and 
such  small  things  as  we  could  carry.  There 
was  a  large  caravan — five  hundred  families — 
but  there  were  no  men  with  us  except  feeble 
old  ones.  A  soldier  came  for  the  keys.  We 
gave  them  and  started  out.  We  did  not  know 
where  we  were  going.  On  a  little  hill,  we 
turned.  Our  home.  .  .  . 

“The  captain  of  gendarmes  accompanied  us 
three  days  to  the  frontier,  and  from  there  he 
must  return.  The  governor  of  Albistan, 
which  is  the  next  province,  sent  gendarmes  to 
meet  us.  They  brought  us  into  the  city.  Tf 
you  will  accept  the  religion  of  Mohammed,’ 
they  said,  ‘you  may  stay  here.’  All  were  look¬ 
ing  to  us — to  our  family.  If  we  went,  they 
would  go;  if  we  stayed,  they  would  stay.  .  . 
How  could  we  stay? 

“When  we  started,  an  officer  came  riding 
up  and  said,  ‘There  is  a  large  gang  of  Kurdish 
thieves  in  the  mountains,  who  will  rob  you. 
We  cannot  spare  more  than  two  or  three 
gendarmes  for  your  protection,  but  if  you  will 
give  us  a  hundred  pounds,  we  will  then  give 
you  sufficient  gendarmes.’  We  took  up  some 
pounds,  here  and  there  as  much  as  we  could — 
fifty  in  all — and  gave  to  them.  At  last  there 


88 


HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


came  with  us  fifty  or  sixty  gendarmes.  It 
began  to  rain  terribly.  At  early  morning  we 
arrived  in  the  mountains  and  saw  the  Kurds 
a  mile  away. 

“Then,  with  my  own  eyes,  I  saw  the  gen¬ 
darmes  unite  with  the  Kurds .  They  took  all 
our  horses  and  goods.  They  began  to  fire  and 
to  kill  us.  I  saw  my  friend  from  school  shot 
at  my  feet.  One  old  man  they  threw  into  a 
tree  and  then  the  tree  was  burned. 

“I  was  separated  from  my  sisters.  All  at 
once  four  Kurds  from  the  gang  were  before 
us.  One  struck  me  with  his  rifle,  and  at  the 
same  moment  one  put  the  blade  of  a  sword  to 
my  throat.  The  edge  was  sharp.  ...  I 
remember,  .  .  .  My  oldest  sister  came  run¬ 
ning  with  a  terrible  cry.  ‘If  you  are  going  to 
kill  him,  do  not  kill  him  with  a  sword,  but  with 
a  rifle.’  Suddenly  they  asked  about  money. 
I  threw  our  purse  out  of  my  pocket.  It 
opened  and  some  gold  money  rolled  out.  In 
the  moment  that  they  stopped  to  make  search 
I  fled.  I  came  to  my  sisters.  Then  I  fainted. 

4 

“The  robbers  left  us.  Again  we  started  on. 
I  was  laughing  now.  ‘Why  do  you  laugh?’ 


KOREN 


89 


my  oldest  sister  asked.  ‘Just  to  be  alive/  I 
said,  ‘and  now  there  are  no  horses  to  bother!’ 
(I  was  very  young.) 

“Of  my  sister’s  four  children,  I  carried  one; 
my  sister,  the  nurse  and  my  mother  each  car¬ 
ried  one.  My  mother’s  mother,  who  was  sev¬ 
enty-five  years  old,  walked  with  us  too.  She 
loved  me  very  much  and  was  always  good  to 
me,  for  when  she  lost  her  own  son  in  the  mas¬ 
sacre  of  1895,  my  mother  took  me  to  her  at 
that  time  and  said,  ‘Here  is  your  son,’ 

“For  five  days  she  walked  with  us,  and  then 
at  evening  she  called  me  and  said,  ‘Koren,  I 
am  dying.  But  I  cannot  bear  to  think  that  I 
shall  lie  beside  the  road  and  no  one  shall  say  a 
prayer  over  me.  I  must  die  soon.  It  is  better 
to  bury  me  now,  even  with  a  little  life  in  my 
body,  that  a  prayer  be  said.  . 

“She  lived  all  the  next  day  (but  we  walked 
very  slowly).  That  night  my  sister  came  to 
me  and  told  that  my  grandmother  was  dead. 
We  made  her  grave  beside  the  road,  and  each 
one,  weeping,  said  a  prayer  beside  her. 

“After  fifteen  days  of  terrible  hardship — 
walking,  and  carrying  the  children  from 
morning  to  evening — we  came  at  last  to 
Aleppo.  There  we  were  safe.” 


90  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


“But  why  didn’t  the  Turks  bother  you  in 
Aleppo?”  I  asked.  “It  was  still  in  Turkey.” 

“Yes — but  it  is  in  Syria.  The  Turks  do 
not  kill  Armenians  in  Syria.” 

“That  was  several  years  ago,”  I  said.  “I 
suppose  that  since  the  war  things  are  better  in 
Turkish  Armenia.” 

Koren  looked  at  me.  “There  are  no  more 
Armenians  in  Turkish  Armenia ”  he  said, 
slowly.  “A  million  are  deported.  A  million 
are  dead.” 

5 

“In  Aleppo,  I  went  to  school  for  a  time. 
Then  the  few  pounds  my  sisters  had  saved 
were  gone.  What  was  there  to  do?  I  jour¬ 
neyed  to  Constantinople.  After  three  months’ 
stadge — soldier  training — I  became  an  assist¬ 
ant  doctor.  For  two  years  I  remained  in  a 
hospital  in  Constantinople.  Then,  on  leave 
to  Damascus,  I  met  Arovni.  It  was  at  my 
brother’s  house,  for  she  was  the  sister  of  my 
brother’s  wife.  Even  before  she  spoke, 
I  thought,  'Arovni  is  charming,  she  is  beauti¬ 
ful.’  We  had  some  talk  together.  There 
came  some  color  in  her  face;  but  my  brother 
said  to  me,  'Koren,  you  are  pale,  you  work  too 
hard  in  Constantinople.’ 


KOREN 


91 


“From  the  first  moment,  there  was  no  other 
thought  for  each  of  us.  And  yet  always  there 
was  a  great  fear.  It  is  the  custom  of  our 
country  that  no  man  may  come  to  marry  the 
sister  of  his  brother’s  wife.  A  walking  party 
was  arranged.  I  walked  beside  her.  ‘We  have 
some  things  to  talk  about,’  I  said,  ‘but  not 
opportunity.  We  will  write.’  Next  day  came 
a  letter  from  Arovni.  ‘I  cannot  write  the 
things  I  would  wish  to  speak,’  she  said. 

“So  I  arranged  to  see  her,  though  we  do  not 
often  meet — young  man  and  girl  alone  to¬ 
gether. 

“Upon  that  day  we  told  each  other  what  we 
knew. 

“But  on  another  day  my  brother’s  wife  saw 
us  speaking  together,  and  in  the  same  hour 
she  found  a  letter  which  Arovni  had  written  to 
me.  Then  my  brother  called  me  to  him. 

“  ‘Is  it  true,  Koren,  that  you  love  Arovni?’ 
he  asked  me.  Then,  when  1  told  him,  he  said, 
‘But  you  know  that  the  custom  of  our  people 
is  such  that  you  cannot  marry  the  sister  of  your 
brother’s  wife.  She  is  your  sister  too.’ 

“  ‘I  know  the  custom,’  I  said,  ‘but  still  I 
love  Arovni.’ 

“  ‘Koren,’  he  said,  ‘you  will  not  marry  her. 


92 


HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


It  is  the  honor  of  our  family.  She  is  my  wife’s 
sister.  Then  how  can  you  love  her?’ 

“  ‘What  do  you  wish?’  I  asked  him. 

“  ‘Promise  you  will  not  write  to  Arovni  nor 
see  her  for  three  years.  If  you  still  care  for  her 
after  that,  then  in  spite  of  our  custom,  you 
shall  marry.’  At  last,  with  great  sadness,  I  ac¬ 
cepted  his  wish.  ‘If  I  write,  it  will  be  in  your 
care,’  I  said.  ‘But  I  must  see  Arovni  once 
again.’ 

6 

“So,  for  a  few  moments,  I  saw  her.  ‘Arovni, 
do  you  care  for  me?’ 

“  ‘Koren,  I  love  you,’  she  said.  I  said  those 
words  too.  .  .  Then  I  told  her  the  thing  my 
brother  demanded,  and  that  I  had  sworn.  And 
I  said,  ‘Each  one  is  against  us — our  brothers, 
your  mother — each  one  in  your  family  and 
mine.  We  may  be  separated  for  three  years, 
for  I  have  given  my  word  I  shall  not  try  to 
see  you  or  to  write.  You  may  perhaps  hear 
that  I  am  not  loving  you,  that  I  am  with  some 
one  else.  Do  not  believe  these  things  unless 
you  hear  from  my  own  lips,  ‘I  do  not  love  you.’ 

“Then  Arovni  was  weeping  and  said, 
‘Koren — Koren — take  me  with  you!’  And  I 
too  could  not  keep  from  weeping,  and  said, 


KOREN 


93 


‘No,  Arovni — you  will  be  an  ideal  for  me.  I 
will  work  and  work  for  you,  and  some  day  I 
will  come  back,  I  will  always  be  loving  you.’ 
Then  I  went  away.” 


CHAPTER  VIII 


1 

“In  Constantinople  I  could  not  work.  The 
Turks  seemed  always  and  always  more  hate¬ 
ful.  With  a  friend  I  resolved  to  escape.  We 
got  away  at  night,  crossed  the  Bosphor,  and 
came  to  Emir  Feisal  in  Mesopotamia.  He 
wished  us  to  stay  with  his  army,  but  we  would 
not.  For  thirteen  days  we  went  across  the 
desert  with  camels,  from  Akabar  to  Suez,  and 
then  from  Suez  to  Cairo. 

“It  is  not  good  for  a  young  man  in  Egypt. 
But  I  was  always  thinking  if  one  day  Arovni 
asks  me,  ‘Koren,  were  you  with  the  women  of 
Egypt?’  I  shall  say  'No.’  (Before  that  time 
such  a  thing  would  be  a  fault.  After  I  have 
known  Arovni  it  would  be  too  great  a  fault.) 

“For  two  years  I  lived  in  Egypt.  I  was 
always  triste ,  for  I  was  always,  always  think¬ 
ing  of  her.  I  moved  about.  It  was  diffi¬ 
cult  to  stay  in  one  place — as  it  is  now.  At  last 
I  decided  to  go  to  the  Soudan.  Everything 
was  arranged.  But  my  friend  said  to  me: 
'You  love  Arovni,  yet  you  are  going  still  fur- 

94 


95 


KOREN 

(  ' 

ther  away.  You  are  a  fool.’  Then,  as  I  hesi¬ 
tated,  came  a  letter  from  my  mother  and  my 
younger  sisters,  to  come  back  to  Aleppo,  for 
General  Allenby  had  taken  the  city.  I  went. 
In  Aleppo,  in  the  General  Headquarters  of 
the  Desert  Mounted  Corps,  I  became  an  in¬ 
terpreter  to  the  British.  When  they  left 
Aleppo  we  went  to  Adana,  where  everything 
was  all  right  for  Armenian  people. 

“Then  one  day  we  were  informed  that 
Arovni  and  her  family  were  on  a  visit  to  Cili- 

_  i 

cia.  They  would  come  to  our  home  in  Adana. 
I  said  to  my  brother,  Tt  is  not  yet  three  years ; 
I  must  go  away.’  But  he  answered:  ‘No,  Stay. 
You  may  not  show  our  other  guests  by  going 
away  that  there  is  something  between  you.’ 

“Arovni  came.  We  had  no  opportunity  to 
speak;  but  her  face,  her  smile,  showed  me 
what  I  wished  to  know.  Then  she  went  away. 

2 

“In  that  last  year  of  waiting,  words  came 
from  time  to  time  concerning  Arovni.  Some 
people  said:  ‘She  is  not  loving  you  any  more. 
She  is  forgetting  you.’  Even  my  brother  said: 
‘Koren,  she  is  not  of  suitable  character  for  you. 
She  loves  others.  If  she  were  a  good  girl,  I 


96 


HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


should  say  nothing.  How  can  you  love  a  girl 
if  she  is  loving  others?’ 

“I  said  to  my  brother  to  be  silent  in  these 
things.  ‘If  I  do  not  see  with  my  own  eyes  and 
hear  with  my  own  ears,  I  shall  believe  in 
Arovni.’  Then  my  brother  would  come  to  the 
thing  that  was  in  his  mind.  ‘Koren,  you  will 
not  do  it.  She  is  the  sister  of  my  wife.  She  is 
your  own  sister  too!’ 

“Once  they  told  me  that  she  would  marry. 
I  could  not  bear  that,  though  I  did  not  believe. 
I  searched  a  means  to  go  to  Damascus.  It 
was  difficult,  for  the  Turks  and  the  French 
were  at  war.  The  trains  were  stopped  be- 
tween  Mersina  and  Adana.  At  last  I  walked 
from  Adana  to  the  sea,  taking  some  things  to 
sell  (but  that  was  only  to  have  a  reason). 
After  some  days  I  came  to  Bey  rout  and  then 
to  Damascus. 

“At  Damascus,  how  could  I  see  Arovni?  I 
had  given  my  word.  I  battled  all  night  with 
my  mind  to  know  what  thing  to  do.  At  last  I 
went  to  the  man  they  said  she  would  marry. 
We  dined  together ;  we  talked  of  many  things. 
But  en  fin  I  said,  ‘Hayk,  why  do  you  not 
marry  V 

“He  said,  T  have  no  girl  to  marry.’  (But 


KOREN 


97 


I  knew  he  was  thinking  of  a  girl.  He  was  so 
very  triste.)  So  I  said,  'Why  do  you  not 
marry  Arovni?’ 

“  ‘How  could  I  marry  her,’  he  said,  ‘when 
she  is  loving  another?’ 

“  ‘But  how  can  you  know  that?’ 

“  ‘Ah!’  he  said,  ‘I  wrote  her  a  letter;  I  gave 
it  to  her  directly.  But  she  sent  it  back  by  her 
mother  and  brother.’ 

“It  was  just  at  that  place  that  I  was  again 
sure  of  Arovni.  I  returned  to  Adana  with  a 
light  heart. 


3 

“The  three  years  were  finished!  We  were 
all  in  Damascus  again,  we  were  to  dine  at 
Arovni’s  house.  They  did  not  wish  me  there, 
but  were  ashamed  not  to  be  asking  me,  because 
I  was  one  of  the  nearest  relatives.  Arovni 
met  me  at  the  door.  With  an  even  voice  I 
said,  ‘Hello*  Arovni — how  are  you V 
“  ‘1  am  very  well /  she  answered,  as  though 
she  saw  me  every  day.  ‘Welcome/ 

“  ‘Where  is  your  family V 
“  ‘ Upstairs /  she  said.  We  spoke  these 
things  that  were  nothing,  but  beyond  them  was 
a  deep  gladness. 


98 


HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


“During  those  years  she  had  gone  to  school; 
she  knew  French;  she  knew  how  to  sew  and 
had  made  much  progress.  To  show  me  what 
she  had  done,  she  began  to  speak  in  French — 
not  directly  to  me — and  about  poesy  and 
music.  My  heart  was  too  glad  because  of 
Arovni. 

“Later  I  came  again  to  the  house.  But  her 
mother  met  me  and  said:  ‘That  matter  is  all 
settled,  Koren.  Your  brother  came  to  Arovni, 
and  it  was  arranged  that  this  marriage  is  im¬ 
possible.  She  does  not  care  for  you.’ 

“I  stood  up,  and  there  came  some  darkness 
before  me  so  that  I  could  not  see  the  mother’s 
face.  I  cried,  ‘Call  Arovni!  Let  her  say  this 
thing  before  me!’  But  she  would  not.  I 
went  to  my  brother’s  house.  It  was  a  terrible 
night,  I  on  one  side  seeing  that  we  would  be 
unhappy  all  our  lives,  they  on  the  other  side 
saying,  ‘Why  shall  he  sacrifice  his  family?’  and 
my  brother  always  thinking  of  his  wife’s  honor 
that  I  should  not  marry  her  sister. 

“At  last  after  many  hours,  I  said  to  my 
brother,  T  will  go  away.’  But  he  said:  ‘Koren, 
I  have  only  one  brother.  I  cannot  lose  you.’ 
Then  my  brother’s  wife  wept  gently  and  said: 
‘Koren,  I  too  am  thinking  of  you.  What  can  I 


KOREN  99 

do?  It  is  between  you  and  me.  If  you  love 
her,  marry  her.” 

Koren  rose  and  strode  forward  and  back 
across  the  room.  “What  could  I  do  then?  I 
found  work.  I  came  away  from  Damascus, 
and  now  I  go  from  city  to  city.  Last  week, 
Vartan,  my  friend,  has  brought  a  letter  from 
me  to  Arovni.  She  took  it.  She  became  pale, 
then  she  returned  it  to  him  saying,  cNo,  I  can¬ 
not  take  the  letter.’  ” 

He  was  silent  for  a  moment,  then  he  burst 
out,  “Tell  me — what  shall  I  do?” 

“I  do  not  know  how  to  answer  that,  Koren,” 
I  said.  “Sometimes  giving  advice  is  easy 
enough.  But  here,  you  have  love  on  both 
sides.” 

“Ah — that  is  what  I  wished  you  to  see,”  he 
said,  eagerly.  “Love  on  both  sides!”  He  was 
silent,  pacing  the  floor  again.  Then,  “I  have 
waited  three  years.  Perhaps  in  a  year  or  two 
years  more — ” 

“How  old  is  Arovni?”  I  interrupted. 

“Arovni?  She  is  just  nineteen.” 

Only  nineteen!  “Koren,”  I  said,  speaking 
my  thought  out  quite  frankly,  “I  should  like  to 
see  Arovni.” 


100  HILLTOPS  m  GALILEE 


He  stopped  in  front  of  me  and  looked  long 
and  searchingly  into  my  face.  Then  his  eyes 
lit  up.  “It  is  difficult,  for  she  must  always 
stay  in  the  house  when  I  am  in  the  city.  But 
when  you  come  to  Damascus — we  shall  see.” 


“STILLE  NACHT  . 


* 


CHAPTER  IX 


1 

I  took  the  road  for  Bethlehem  at  five.  Five 
is  early  even  for  Palestine.  The  oil  lamps  by 
the  Jaffa  Gate  still  flickered  in  the  pale  light. 
The  valley  of  Hinnom  was  just  beginning  to 
stir  a  little  to  the  first  signals  of  approaching 
day  from  the  barnyard  animals  in  the  villages 
which  lay  beyond.  Up  the  road  came  small 
knots  of  people,  trudging  afoot  after  their 
donkeys — men  with  crates  of  garden  produce, 
boys  carrying  braces  of  fowl,  women  with 
trays  of  milk- jars  balanced  on  their  heads. 

These  are  the  lowly,  faithful  ones  of  the 
brotherhood  of  all  cities.  There  is  a  sort  of 
wistfulness  about  their  common  lot,  for  the 
only  time  we  notice  them  at  all  is  when  they 
are  unfaithful!  Among  their  number  are  the 
paper  boys  and  the  man  who  brings  the  rolls 
and  the  milkman  (he  gets  a  little  restive  occa¬ 
sionally)  and  the  truck-garden  men.  And 
here  were  their  fellows  coming  silently  through 
the  gray  dawn  up  the  Bethlehem  road. 

Skirting  down  the  valley,  the  way  turned 

103 


104  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


to  the  right  and  crossed  abruptly  over  a  mas¬ 
sive  bridge.  I  reached  the  opposite  height  just 
as  day  was  breaking.  Along  came  a  string  of 
camels  laden  with  building  stone,  the  two 
handsomest  (if  a  camel  may  be  called  hand¬ 
some)  wearing  double  strings  of  large  blue 
beads  about  their  necks  to  bring  good  luck  and 
particularly  to  ward  off  the  nefarious  “evil 
eye  of  envy.”  (Without  those  highly  protec¬ 
tive  beads  a  single  look  from  the  wrong  person 
would  be  fatal!)  Then  two  little  girls  came 
marching  along  carrying  water  tins  on  their 
precarious  heads.  One  of  them  stopped  and 
said,  “Baksheesh' ,  baksheesh in  a  noncha¬ 
lant,  impersonal  manner,  just  as  though  ask¬ 
ing  for  “a  gift”  were  exactly  the  same  thing  as 
saying  “Good  day.”  But  when  I  answered 
“La;  la;  imshi!”  (No;  no;  go  chase  yourself!) 
as  one  sometimes  must,  she  laughed  and  scam¬ 
pered  light-heartedly  after  the  other,  water  tin 
and  all. 

Presently  the  road  left  the  valley  to  traverse 
some  fertile,  rolling  country  with  red-roofed 
villages  among  cypress  trees  in  the  distance — 
the  sort  of  landscape  one  constantly  sees 
fringing  the  Mediterranean — certainly  not 
an  unusual  scene.  And  yet  it  was  right  on  this 


Where  the  stars  go  gently  by.  Bethlehem 


“STILLE  NACHT  .  .  ” 


105 


same  peaceful  plain  that  a  Semitic  chief  in 
the  long  ago  fought  desperately  for  his  coun¬ 
try  against  powerful  enemies  from  the  south¬ 
west.  If  he  had  lost,  we  would  have  been  the 
losers  too,  for  his  name  was  David. 

And  here,  in  this  ordinary  landscape,  to  the 
left  of  the  road,  is  a  small,  round  well,  with  a 
stone  beside  it  hollowed  out  to  make  a  basin. 
I  went  past — stopped — and  then  came  slowly 
back.  It  was  the  Well  of  the  Magi!  The  well 
where  the  mysterious  travelers  from  the  East 
(so  an  old  legend  relates)  sat  down  to  rest  and 
again  saw  the  star  they  had  lost,  reflected  on 
its  surface.  The  Well  of  the  Magi!  And  I 
went  up  the  hill  beyond,  wondering  how  many 
such  wells  we  pass,  with  the  stars  we  have  lost 
shining  there  again  for  us.  Just  because  the 
road  is  a  little  long  and  dusty.  .  . 

2 

A  small  procession  came  plodding  over  the 
hill.  First,  a  man  in  a  rusty  black  suit  bear¬ 
ing  a  staff  topped  by  a  silver  cross.  He  car¬ 
ried  the  staff  with  great  care,  looking  up  every 
few  paces  to  see  that  the  cross  was  directly  to 
the  front.  Behind  him  trudged  another,  care¬ 
fully  holding  a  small  coffin  in  his  arms.  Its 


106  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


diminutive  outline  was  pathetically  visible 
through  a  piece  of  cheap  geranium-colored 
silk  which  covered  it.  The  burden  was  light, 
for  the  bearer  walked  quite  erect,  looking 
directly  before  him.  The  others  followed  in 
what  order  they  chose,  some  in  native  dress, 
some  in  stiff,  badly  cut  store  clothes.  With 
serious,  perplexed  eyes,  they  regarded  the  gay 
clouds  scudding  across  the  sky,  the  birds  nest¬ 
ing  in  the  trees,  the  newly  opened  buds  of 
roadside  flowers. 

At  a  hilltop,  beyond  a  monastery  dedicated 
to  Elisha,  a  deepening  gorge  runs  to  the  Dead 
Sea.  To  the  right  is  the  tomb  of  Rachel,  one 
of  the  few  monuments  which  are  the  property 
of  the  Jews.  A  little  town  is  visible  on  the  hill¬ 
top  beyond.  In  the  fields  at  either  side  some 
of  the  most  touching  and  beautiful  incidents 
in  human  experience  have  occurred.  Here 
Jacob  buried  his  beloved  wife.  Here  also 
took  place  that  lovely  idyl  of  a  courageous, 
loyal-hearted  girl  named  Ruth,  and  a  young 
husbandman  who  was  good  to  his  gleaners. 
And,  certainly  not  far  from  these  hillsides,  a 
little  lad,  the  smallest  son  of  Jesse,  was  scolded 
by  his  older  brother  for  leaving  his  sheep.  In 
the  sadder  time  of  Jeremiah  a  handful  of 


“STILLE  NACHT  .  .  ” 


107 


refugees,  making  their  way  to  Egypt,  found 
shelter  here  at  an  inn  called  the  Khan  Chim- 
han. 

We  do  not  hear  of  that  same  khan  for  a 
great  many  years,  not  indeed  until  Luke  the 
physician  relates  another  story  for  us.  Very 
near  the  beginning  of  the  story  he  mentions  the 
khan  again. 

“There  was  no  room  for  them  in  the  inn.  .  .” 


CAROL 


Blessed  Lady ,  swete  and  goode , 
Give  him  of  your  gentle  foode. 

Father  Joseph ,  night  and  daye. 
Never  doun  to  slepe  he  laye . 

Caspar  and  Prince  Melchior 
Broghten  gifts ,  full  half  a  score. 

While  Balthasar ,  derk  of  face , 
Beren  gold  with  manly  grace . 

Shepherds  outen  yonder  hille 
Knelen  doun  with  voices  stille . 


Little  babe,  in  manger  stalle , 
Blesse  us  one ,  and  blesse  us  alle. 


CHAPTER  X 


1 

» 

I  sat  upon  the  doorstep  of  the  house  of 
Andre  Zmuri  in  Bethlehem.  To  the  east 
above  the  hills  of  Moab,  a  complete,  gorgeous 
bow  of  color  spanned  the  sky.  It  was  hardly 
a  rainbow.  There  had  been  no  rain  for  weeks. 
Still,  there  it  was — shimmering  against  an 
opaque,  blue-green  haze,  while  the  fortress¬ 
like  Church  of  the  Nativity,  lit  by  the  setting 
sun,  rose  out  of  its  green  background  in 
brilliant  orange  silhouette. 

“I  have  never  seen  this  thing  before  in 
May,”  said  Andre;  “a  rainbow  without  rain, 
at  sunset.”  But  he  was  busy  making  after- 
dinner  coffee,  which  is  a  rite  not  easily  to  be 
interrupted.  First  he  slowly  roasted  the  green 
coffee  beans  over  a  charcoal  brazier  until  they 
turned  a  rich,  reddish  black.  Then,  using  a 
tubular  brass  coffee  mill  with  a  crank  at  the 
end,  he  ground  the  aromatic  berries  to  a  rich, 
fragrant  powder,  thereby  allowing  all  the 
aroma  to  free  itself — the  way  our  coffee 
machines  do  not .  Finally  he  placed  a  little  of 

109 


110  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


the  powder  in  a  small  brass  coffeepot  and  al¬ 
lowed  the  mixture  to  boil  up  just  once.  The 
result  was  coffee  sans  reproche  ( and  sans  peur 
of  its  being  anything  but  coffee). 

The  water  for  it  came  from  a  pump  three 
feet  from  the  kitchen  door.  “I/eau,  c’est 
bonne V*  I  asked. 

“Absolu?nentr  said  Andre.  “It  is  from  a 
tank  directly  below  the  house.  The  doctor 
comes  and  drops  something  into  it  every  week.” 
This  news  left  me  quite  unmoved.  I  had  al¬ 
ready  been  living  in  the  house  of  Zmuri  a 
week.  If  I  were  going  to  catch  anything, 
it  would  already  have  been  caught. 

Andre  spoke  his  native  Arabic  and  also 
French.  Jalila,  his  wife,  spoke  only  Arabic. 
The  six  younger  Zmuri s — three  and  three — 
ranging  from  four  to  twenty  years,  spoke  a 
melange  of  languages,  which  in  the  case  of 
Issa,  the  oldest  son,  included  a  little  English. 

There  must  have  been  a  time,  just  before 
J  ehovah  gave  the  last  twist  to  the  tongues  at 
the  Tower  of  Babel,  when  the  whole  thing 
seemed  something  of  a  lark.  To  have  asked 
your  neighbor  in  the  draughting-room  for  a 
pair  of  dividers,  and  then  (after  he  had 
looked  at  you  for  a  moment  in  a  wild-eyed 


“STILLE  NACHT  .  .  ” 


111 


sort  of  way)  to  have  him  come  struggling  in 
over  the  drawing  tables  with  a  hodful  of  un¬ 
baked  brick  must,  to  say  the  least,  have  been 
diverting.  There  was  also  diversion  in  the 
house  of  Zmuri. 

/  I 

The  house  stands  just  at  that  point  on  the 
Bethlehem  road  where  a  lane  turns  off  toward 
David’s  well.  The  first  floor  seemed  to  be  used 
as  a  sort  of  storehouse  for  odds  and  ends,  in¬ 
cluding  a  broken-down  phaeton  and  the  huge 
root  of  an  old  tree.  A  dungeonlike  passage 
and  dark  stairs  led  to  the  flat  roof,  at  one  side 
of  which  were  two  solidly  built  rooms  each 
with  its  strong  stone  walls  and  domed  roof, 
(it  is  this  method  of  building  which  gives 
many  of  the  houses  of  Palestine  such  an  un¬ 
finished  appearance.  A  man  builds  as  many 
rooms  as  he  requires,  adding  others  perhaps 
fifteen  or  twenty  years  later  when  the  next 
generation  comes  to  live  with  him.) 

The  household  included  Andre,  his  wife,  his 
sister-in-law,  his  six  children,  and  me.  And 
one  of  the  two  rooms  was  mine!  I  protested, 
I  decried,  I  disapproved.  But  Arab  courtesy 
is  not  a  matter  lightly  to  be  set  aside.  As  a 
final  concession,  Andre  agreed  to  allow  the 
oldest  son  to  spread  his  mattress  at  night  in 


112  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


my  room.  I  had  not  been  a  day  at  the  Zmuri’s 
when  I  learned  another  point  of  Arab  cour¬ 
tesy.  It  was  plainly  the  endeavor  of  all  the 
family  to  keep  the  guest  at  the  gastronomical 
bursting  point.  The  culinary  department  was 
a  little  shed  on  the  far  side  of  the  roof.  Out  of 
if  came  huge  plates  of  rice  baked  in  grape 
leaves,  great  bowls  of  broiled  cucumbers  which 
had  been  skillfully  hollowed  out  and  filled  with 
meat,  pitchers  of  sour  goat’s  milk,  pecks  of 
ripe  olives,  cheese  for  a  squad,  bread  for  a 
platoon.  And  then,  because  I  did  not  follow 
the  example  of  the  Spratt  family  and  lick  the 
platter  clean,  the  good  Jalila,  barefooted  and 
picturesque,  would  come  in  to  look  at  me  and 
then  spread  out  her  hands  and  make  Arabic 
sounds  to  the  effect  that  I  was  going  into  a 
decline. 

I  told  her  through  Andre  it  was  no  wonder 
that  Samson  had  grown  up  in  those  parts.  At 
which  she  laughed  and  said  in  Arabic,  “Well, 
since  that  is  the  case — go  right  ahead  and  eat!” 
On  my  protesting  that  the  thing  was  impossi¬ 
ble,  Jalila,  who  spoke  not  a  single  word  of 
English,  lifted  up  her  voice  and  cried,  “Come 
on,  come  on!”  with  a  decided  Bowery  accent, 
followed  immediately  by  “Scoot!  Scoot!”  to 


“STILLE  NACHT  .  .  .” 


113 


the  children  who  had  come  in  to  see  what  the 
mirth  was  about.  At  the  moment,  I  was  a  lit¬ 
tle  stunned  by  this  almost  psychic  leap  into 
the  vernacular,  but  it  was  shortly  explained  by 
Issa.  Kamdn  in  Arabic  means  “again”;  and 
scoot  means  “Peace,  be  still.” 

2 

My  room — high-domed  and  whitewashed — 
was  about  twelve  feet  square.  The  floor  was 
made  of  rectangular,  odd-sized  stones,  care¬ 
fully  dressed  and  fitted  together.  There  were 
two  doors,  one  leading  onto  the  flat  roof  and 
one  to  the  second  room  occupied  by  the  family. 
Opposite  the  door  a  neat  pile  of  mattresses 
fitted  into  a  wide,  arched  niche  in  the  wall. 
Beside  it  a  high  wooden  clothespress  held  the 
household  linen.  There  were  also  things  on 
the  wall:  A  gay  Teutonic  lithograph  of 
a  family  enjoying  Pfeffermintz  Bonbons, 
from  Vienna.  A  perpetual  calendar  presented 
by  A.  R.  Michelotti,  3  rue  Manthalon,  Paris. 
Five  color  prints  of  the  Virgin,  all  entirely 
different  in  type,  two  with  inscriptions  in 
Arabic,  one  in  F rench,  and  one  in  German.  A 
black  wooden  crucifix.  A  shelf  holding  a  care¬ 
fully  arranged  row  of  empty  bottles. 


114  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


At  night  the  mattresses  and  bedding  dis¬ 
appeared  from  the  niche  into  the  other  room 
and  on  to  the  roof,  where  some  of  the  male 
Zmuris  slept.  They  tried  to  prevail  upon 
me  to  supplement  the  mattress  in  my  bedding 
roll  with  one  of  theirs,  or  to  do  away  with  the 
bedding  roll  entirely.  At  such  times  in  the 
East,  Near  or  Far,  one  must  be  firm. 

Jalila  steadfastly  refused  to  pose  for  a 
sketch.  I  tried  to  allay  her  fears  with  pleas¬ 
ant  information  about  my  own  antecedents. 
She  was  pleased  to  hear  that  my  mother’s 
name  was  Virginia,  and  that  my  mother’s 
mother’s  name  was  Virginia  (just  as  she  and 
her  daughter  were  named  Jalila) — but  she 
would  not  pose.  It  was  only  by  exercise  of 
the  utmost  diplomacy  and  tact  that  an  oil 
sketch  was  to  be  had  at  all  of  the  costume  of 
the  married  women  of  Bethlehem.  A  neigh¬ 
bor  finally  consented  to  run  the  risk  involved 
(whatever  it  was),  but  it  may  be  seen  from 
'  the  reproduction  facing  page  126  that  it  was 
not  an  occasion  of  undue  mirth.  She  even  re¬ 
quested  that  the  blinds  on  the  street  be  closed. 
It  might  have  been  a  funeral! 

The  Bethlehem  costume  is  practically  iden¬ 
tical  with  some  of  the  French  modes  during 


“STXLLE  NACHT  .  .  ” 


115 


the  Crusades.  The  high,  conical  hat  covered 
with  its  flaming  white  kerchief,  the  voluminous 
skirts  and  broad  sleeves,  the  squares  of  em¬ 
broidery,  may  all  be  found  in  Frankish  styles 
of  the  day.  Then,  too,  there  is  evidence  in 
plenty  that  the  French  Crusaders  brought 
their  ladies  to  Bethlehem  and  that  since  the 
Crusades  the  little  town  has  been  compara¬ 
tively  undisturbed  by  the  events  which  have 
shaken  Jerusalem;  (and  after  all,  since  the 
ladies  of  France  set  the  modes  in  such  an 
imperious  manner  to-day,  is  there  any  reason 
for  us  to  doubt  their  efficiency  then?) 

3 

Bethlehem  is  distinctly  mediaeval.  It 
abounds  in  flying  buttresses,  arches,  cloisters, 
nunneries,  friaries,  mullioned  windows,  and 
streets  that  are  flights  of  stairs.  More  than 
any  of  these,  the  brightly  embroidered,  Old- 
World  gowns,  and  the  white,  high-peaked 
headdresses  of  the  women  help  to  give  it  the 
appearance  of  a  considerably  earlier  century. 
Even  its  location  is  well  suited  to  resist  attack 
with  mace,  broadsword,  and  ballista.  Go 
around  the  south  end  of  the  Church  of  the 
Nativity  and  you  will  find  yourself  on  the 


116  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


southern  prow  of  the  town  with  a  valley  on 
each  side  as  in  Jerusalem.  Go  hack  along  the 
ridge  to  the  north,  and  again  there  is  a  valley 
to  the  right  and  another  to  the  left.  Here  are 
no  such  sharp  descents  as  at  Jerusalem;  but 
the  appearance  of  security  is  greater,  for 
Bethlehem’s  hill  is  higher  than  any  other  in 
its  vicinity. 

The  Well  of  David  is  at  the  north  end  of 
the  town.  His  three  mighty  men  who  crossed 
the  enemy’s  encircling  line  near  Adullam, 
drew  water  here  and  returned  with  it  to  the 
king,  were  probably  as  adept  as  Bed  Indians 
at  guerrilla  warfare.  One  cannot  believe  for 
a  moment  that  they  brazened  it  up  the  main 
road  with  all  the  magnificent  shelter  of  the 
valley  right  at  hand.  The  fields  about  the 
town,  dotted  with  olive  trees,  are  fashioned  like 
swallows’  nests,  one  below  another  down  the 
hillside.  No  room  for  flocks  here  now,  for  the 
stone  fences  are  higher  than  they  appear.  At 
the  base  of  the  hill  the  ground  is  very  dry,  but 
a  mile  to  the  south  the  foliage  in  the  valley 
takes  on  a  brilliant  green  and  the  yellow  ochre 
of  the  parched,  sun-burnt  soil  changes  to  a  rich 
umber. 

There  are  three  reasons  for  this.  They  are 


“STILLE  NACHT  .  .  ” 


117 


the  first,  second,  and  third  Pools  of  Solomon 
far  up  the  valley. 


4 

Two  hours’  stiff  walk  along  the  road  toward 
Hebron  brought  me  to  the  Pools  of  Solomon 
— three  vast  reservoirs,  for  the  most  part  hewn 
out  of  the  solid  rock,  lying  one  below  another 
down  a  narrow  valley.  During  the  ages  con¬ 
siderable  silt  must  have  spread  over  their  stone 
and  cement  floors,  for  the  upper  “pool”  had 
been  converted  into  vegetable  gardens,  worked 
by  blue-clad  fellahin ,  with  only  the  slightest 
trace  of  a  stream  trickling  among  the  vege¬ 
tables.  The  second  pool,  brimming  with  water 
of  a  rich  peacock  blue,  had  recently  been  re¬ 
enforced  with  new  masonry  at  its  lower  end. 
From  the  lowest  pool,  which  was  only  half 
full,  a  small  stream  gushed  downward  into  the 
valley. 

We  do  not  know  whether  Solomon  actuallv 
built  these  immense  reservoirs,  but  it  is  plain 
that  whoever  did  build  them  intended  the 
water  for  Jerusalem.  Traces  of  an  aqueduct 
may  still  be  seen  along  the  Bethlehem  road. 
Well  below^  the  surface,  an  ancient  conduit 
constructed  with  astonishingly  fine  workman- 


118  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


ship  and  still  perfectly  preserved,  conveys 
water  across  twenty  miles  of  stony  hillsides  to 
the  great  city. 

As  I  went  down  the  valley  along  a  road 
which  itself  had  once  been  an  aqueduct,  there 
rose  from  below  that  music  with  which  the 
Palestine  summer  is  so  unfamiliar — the  song 
of  running  water.  The  valley’s  base  blos¬ 
somed  with  luxuriant  shrubs  and  flowering 
plants.  Mulberry,  apricot,  and  almond  sweet¬ 
ened  the  air  with  their  fragrance,  and  in  the 
cool  shade  of  young  fruit  trees  the  small  spark¬ 
ling  stream  splashed  from  one  level  to  another 
over  little  shelves  of  rock. 

A  beautiful  place  in  which  to  live,  I  thought 
— this  lovely,  peaceful  valley,  with  the  blue 
Palestine  sky  overhead,  and  always,  if  one 
cared  to  listen,  the  song  of  birds  and  the  music 
of  the  tiny  rivulet.  Then  I  came  around  a 
large  rock,  and  saw  that  some  one  else  had 
thought  the  same  thing  before  me.  Below, 
among  rich  foliage,  was  a  great  convent  of 
smooth,  white  stone,  with  a  red-tiled  roof  and 
windows  of  gray  glass  and  a  high  substruc¬ 
ture  of  stone  with  carved  balustrades.  The 
valley  divided,  one  branch  continuing  east¬ 
ward,  and  the  other  leading  north  to  Bethle- 


“STILLE  NACHT  .  .  ” 


119 


hem.  And  there,  indeed,  was  Bethlehem, 
sparking  on  its  hilltop. 

I  sat  down  under  a  fig  tree  and  watched  the 
sun  and  clouds  change  the  eastward  hills  and 
valleys  from  one  astonishing  and  delightful 
pattern  to  another.  First  a  vast  dark  form 
would  come  riding  up  over  the  hills — majestic 
as  the  shadow  of  the  winged  horse  of  Bellero- 
phon  or  some  great  galleon  of  the  sky  sailing 
by  at  a  breathless  height.  Wherever  it  fell, 
the  rocky  slope  turned  to  dark  gray  with  green 
in  it,  and  each  olive  tree  was  a  patch  of  green 
with  gray  in  it,  and  the  sky  in  back  was  the 
blue  of  a  turquoise.  Then  a  strip  of  sun 
marched  over  the  crest;  and  under  its  touch 
the  landscape  sang  out  in  brilliant  greens,  and 
tans,  and  yellows  like  a  battle  hymn  of  David. 

After  I  had  watched  an  hour  or  more,  I  lay 
down  on  such  turf  as  there  was  under  the  fig 
tree.  A  cool  breeze  was  blowing  from  the 
Mediterranean,  and  rustling  the  leaves  of  the 
nearby  olives.  Languorous,  delightful  solitude ! 
Then  I  lazily  decided  that  before  I  left,  it 
would  be  pleasant  to  follow  the  example  of 
“R.  L.  S.,”  who,  when  traveling  through  the 
south  of  France  with  a  lady  named  Modestine, 
left  a  piece  of  money  in  the  forest  to  pay  for 


120  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


his  night’s  lodging.  (A  wonderful  man — 
R.  L.  S !  Instead  of  growing  older,  he  grew 
younger.  At  the  age  of  four,  he  put  his  toys 
away  and  said,  “I  can’t  be  bothered  with  such 
fiddle-dee-dee  and  nonsense;”  and  then  at  the 
age  of  thirty  he  was  playing  at  lead  soldiers 
with  his  step-son!) 

Yes  I  would  certainly  leave  a  piece  of 
money.  .  .  . 

But  when  I  woke  the  offering  was  quite  for¬ 
gotten.  For  it  was  painfully  clear  that  a  cer¬ 
tain  old  adage  about  “the  sluggard  going  to 
the  ant”  had  been  reversed.  With  great  deter¬ 
mination  (and  that  is  wdiat  comes  of  sleeping 
on  an  ant  hill)  the  ant  had  gone  to  the  slug¬ 
gard.  So  I  arose  with  haste,  shook  myself  as 
free  as  possible,  and  went  back  through  the 
evening  to  Bethlehem.  And  there  was  the 
coffee-pot  beside  the  fire  and  the  small  oil  lamp 
lit  and  the  family  of  Zmuri  watching  for  me. 


CHAPTER  XI 


1 

Andr£  held  up  the  shell  of  a  huge  salt-water 
mussel  which  decorated  the  top  of  the  clothes- 
press.  “This,”  he  said,  “is  the  machine  that 
gives  work  to  the  men  of  Bethlehem.  From 
this  they  make  the  beads,  the  pictures,  the  pan¬ 
els,  the  carved  figures  of  saints.  You  shall 
see!” 

i 

We  passed  up  the  narrow  street  and  en¬ 
tered  a  small  shop  where  a  dozen  men,  crowded 
together  on  the  floor,  were  working  with  quick, 
nervous  energy  in  a  thick  cloud  of  powdered 
mother-of-pearl  which  filled  the  air  and  lay 
upon  their  clothes.  Their  tasks  were  varied. 
Some,  armed  with  primitive  how  drills,  were 
boring  holes  in  the  shell.  Others  were  sawing 
it  into  narrow  blocks  from  which  small  cubes 
would  be  cut  and  filed  by  hand  into  beads.  Still 
others  were  carving  designs  upon  strips  of  the 
same  material,  which  were  to  be  fitted  into 
miniature  shrines.  A  busy  humming  of  drills 
and  rasping  of  files  filled  the  air.  Similar 
noises  were  audible  all  over  Bethlehem. 

121 


122  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


(There  was  a  shop  just  across  the  road  from 
my  window  which  scraped  and  filed  from  five 
in  the  morning  until  six  at  night  with  a  scant 
half  hour  of  rest  at  noon.) 

The  little  town  is  honeycombed  with  these 
f obliques ,  for  practically  the  entire  male  popu¬ 
lation  works  in  mother-of-pearl.  Besides  the 
artisans  who  make  beads  and  amulets  there 
are  those  who  build  up  pearl  shrines  on  wooden 
frames,  and  still  others  who  carve  small  statues 
and  bas-reliefs  of  saints  from  that  mate¬ 
rial  to  take  their  places  in  the  shrines.  But 
the  work  is  done  hastily  and  badly,  and  it  is  by 
no  means  original.  In  one  stall  after  another 
the  same  figures,  the  same  designs  appear.  A 
friend  of  Andre  showed  me  his  book  of  pat¬ 
terns — a  collection  of  drawings  copied  in 
pencil  from  the  very  worst  of  Gothic,  Ro¬ 
manesque,  Arabic,  and  Byzantine  decoration. 

I  must  confess  to  a  certain  depression  of 
spirit  at  seeing  this  intensive  labor  of  hundreds 
of  men  for  twelve  hours  a  day  when  the  result¬ 
ing  product  was  neither  useful,  nor,  from  the 
most  generous  standards  of  art,  beautiful. 
With  bowed  backs  and  apparently  bowed 
minds,  they  worked  on  and  on  turning  out  one 
after  another  of  their  badly  carved  saints  in 


“STILLE  NACHT  .  .  . 


123 


appalling,  complicated  shrines.  Exploitation 
plus  human  inertia.  Their  grandfathers,  their 
great-grandfathers  did  it  like  this. 

“Who  carves  the  best  saints?”  I  asked  of 
Andre. 

“There  is  an  old  man  up  the  hill,”  he  said; 
“ allonsl ”  We  saw  the  old  man,  but  it  was  the 
same  thing.  Bad  copies  of  bad  copies. 

“Is  there  no  one  who  makes  his  own  de¬ 
signs?”  I  inquired,  a  little  desperately.  Andre 
shook  his  head.  “Not  since  my  father  died. 
He  was  a  sculptor.  There  is  none  of  his  work 
in  Bethlehem;  but  in  the  village  of  Beth  Saho, 
a  few  minutes’  walk  down  the  hill — ” 

We  started  immediately  down  past  the 
monasteries  and  church  on  the  southern  crest 
toward  a  group  of  flat  roofs  below,  Andre  in 
the  meanwhile  telling  me  that  his  father  had 
died  at  the  age  of  thirty -three  when  he  himself 
was  only  five.  The  altar  piece  in  the  church 
at  Beth  Saho  was  his  last  work.  It  was  made, 
he  added,  more  than  forty  years  ago. 

We  paused  a  moment  at  the  door  of  the  little 
church. 

“That,”  said  Andre,  pointing  to  a  meadow  to 
the  east,  “is  the  Field  of  the  Shepherds.”  Then 
we  entered. 


124  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


2 

Andre  Zmuri  was  right.  His  father  was  a 
sculptor.  The  altar  piece,  twelve  feet  or  more 
across  and  breast  high,  was  carved  in  the  rich, 
ivory-tan  stone  of  the  country.  A  series 
of  panels  side  by  side  showed  the  Annuncia¬ 
tion,  the  meeting  of  Elisabeth  and  Mary,  the 
coming  of  the  Wise  Men,  the  Stable  of  the 
Inn.  Beautiful,  serious  work  this,  as  quaint 
and  eagerly  earnest  as  that  of  the  first  poig¬ 
nant,  living  years  of  the  Henaissance.  Here 
and  there  a  halo  shone  in  pale  or  reddish  gold. 
Here  and  there  the  sculptor  had  painted  the 
carefully  carved  leaves  of  tree  or  bush  a  faint, 
warm  green.  That  was  all.  A  wonderful 
restraint  of  color — ivory,  green,  and  gold. 

From  the  top  of  the  panel  farthest  to  the 
right  the  austere  yet  kindly  face  of  the  elder 
Zmuri’ s  God  looked  thoughtfully  down  be¬ 
tween  shafts  of  golden  light.  About  him,  in  a 
circle  of  clouds,  appeared  the  heads  of  many 
cherubim.  Longer  rays  of  light,  with  a  white 
dove  hovering  in  their  midst,  joined  the  upper 
half  of  the  panel  with  the  lower.  Below,  at 
each  side  of  a  small  manger,  kneeled  Mary  and 
Joseph  in  the  attitude  of  mediaeval  saints, 
while  back  of  them  and  facing  each  other,  stood 


“STILLE  NACHT  .  .  .” 


125 


an  ox  and  an  ass.  The  sculptor  had  not  at¬ 
tempted  to  make  the  animals  foreshortened  so 
that  they  too  would  be  looking  into  the  man¬ 
ger.  They  stood  head  to  head  in  direct  profile, 
like  lions  in  a  Babylonian  relief. 

The  decorative,  beautiful  treatment  of  the 
hair,  the  crisp  planes  of  the  faces,  the  mid-air 
poise  of  the  dove  almost  Japanese  in  its  sim¬ 
plicity,  the  extremely  difficult  matters  of  the 
clouds  and  the  cherubim  and  the  shafts  of 
light — all  these  spoke  of  a  thorough,  creative 
mastery. 

“Where  did  your  father  learn  these  things?” 
I  asked  of  Andre,  who  was  standing  by,  radiat¬ 
ing  quiet,  Oriental  pride. 

“He  learned  by  carving  small  saints  of 
pearl  in  my  uncle’s  shop  on  the  hill.” 

“In  heaven’s  name,  Andre — not  saints  like 
those  the  others  carve!” 

He  smiled.  “No,  monsieur,  not  like  the 
others.  Sometimes  the  others  laughed,  for  my 
father  worked  very  slowly.  My  mother  has 
told  me  that  sometimes  we  were  hungry.  But 
what  does  that  matter  now?  You  can  see  for 
yourself — he  carved  his  saints  well.” 


126  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


3 

We  went  down  through  the  village  to  the 
Field  of  the  Shepherds,  a  turf -grown,  wall-en¬ 
closed  plot  of  ground  with  some  olive  trees  on 
it  and  a  small,  underground  chapel  containing 
a  few  broken  shafts  of  columns  and  a  trace  of 
mosaic  pavement.  By  merest  chance — for 
nowadays  the  flocks  usually  keep  to  the  higher 
ground — we  came  upon  a  hundred  or  more 
sheep  grazing  along  the  narrow  road.  There 
were  two  shepherds  with  them,  a  young  lad 
and  his  chief,  the  latter  a  splendid  old  fellow 
with  dark,  grizzled  hair  and  flashing  eyes, 
dressed  in  a  broad-striped  mizhla  of  wool.  We 
sat  down  on  the  stone  wall  beside  him  to  rest 
for  a  few  moments  before  returning  to  the 
town.  He  seemed  to  be  glad  to  find  some  one 
to  converse  with  and  told  us  that  he  had  been 
a  shepherd  for  fifty  years. 

“Do  you  stay  in  the  fields  with  your  flocks 
at  night?”  I  asked  through  Andre. 

“La!  La!”  he  answered,  quickly.  “Every 
night  I  bring  the  flock  to  Bethlehem.  It  is 
dangerous  in  the  fields  after  dark  because  the 
wolves  will  come  along  the  stone  walls  and  kill 
three  or  four  sheep.  For  every  sheep  I  lose, 
I  must  pay.” 


TJhe  costumes  of  the  married  women  of  Bethlehem  are  similar  to 
certain  of  the  Frankish  modes  during  the  Crusades.  Their  quaintness 
gives  the  town  an  additional  charm. 


. 


“STILLE  NACHT  .  .  ” 


127 


“Then  the  sheep  are  not  yours?” 

“La.  From  one  family  in  Bethlehem  I  re¬ 
ceive  one  sheep,  from  another  family  I  have 
another  sheep,  until  there  are  a  hundred,  some¬ 
times  two  hundred  sheep  in  all.  For  the  care 
of  each  one  I  am  given  fifteen  piastres  (about 
seventy -five  cents)  a  month.  At  night  some 
live  in  a  room  under  my  house,  some  under  the 
boy  Jousseph’s  house,  for  they  are  safe  there, 
too.” 

“But  I  thought  that  in  the  old  days  the 
shepherds  watched  their  flocks  in  the  fields  at 
night!” 

“Ah,  yes,”  he  said,  his  eyes  sparkling  with 
interest,  “but  then  the  shepherds  lived  in  the 
fields.  They  lived  in  caves — like  that  one. 
And  in  the  old  days  the  fields  were  large. 
Wolves  could  not  so  easily  crawl  along  the 
fences  and  attack  the  sheep.” 

We  sat  silently  smoking  for  a  while.  Then 
another  question  came  into  my  mind.  I  won¬ 
dered  whether  he  ever  felt  any  stirrings  over 
the  fact  that  he  too  was  a  shepherd,  here  in  the 
very  fields  where  those  earlier  shepherds  had 
been.  I  tried  to  carry  that  idea  over  to  him: 

“At  Noel — the  twenty-fifth  of  December — 
a  great  many  people  all  over  the  world  remem- 


128  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


ber  these  fields  about  Bethlehem.  It  must  be 
pleasant  to  be  here.” 

He  looked  comfortably  about — at  his  sheep, 
at  the  surrounding  hills. 

“Yes,”  he  said,  “the  air  is  very  good.  The 
life  is  healthy.  I  would  rather  be  here  than  in 
the  town.” 

Bless  the  old  fellow!  A  true  descendant  of 
those  other  simple  men!  So  I  stopped  asking 
any  more  questions  and  breathed  deeply  of 
his  good  air  and  called  his  attention  to  the 
beauty  of  the  day,  he  agreeing  with  a  vigorous, 
friendly  nod;  and  then  we  went  away  up  the 
hill  and  left  him  peacefully  watching  his  flocks. 


4 

My  stay  at  Bethlehem  was  over.  On  the 
morning  of  departure  for  Jerusalem,  Jalila 
came  in  with  four  hard  boiled  eggs  and  a  huge 
loaf  of  bread  which  she  presented  to  me  with 
beaming  face.  Her  housewifely  instincts 
completely  vanquished  the  mere  physical  fact 
that  Jerusalem  was  only  half  an  hour  away! 
I  might  get  hungry.  .  . 

Knowing  that  on  departure  small  gifts  are 
customary,  I  had  procured  a  few  cigarettes 


“STILLE  NACHT  .  .  ” 


129 


for  Andre,  and  a  handkerchief  or  two  for 
Jalila.  They  thanked  me  with  great  appre¬ 
ciation,  but  immediately  I  could  see  them 
thinking  desperately  of  something  to  do  in  re¬ 
turn — a  result  I  had  not  wished.  They  hur¬ 
ried  away,  then  came  quickly  back  with  a 
mother-of-pearl  pin  engraved  with  a  star,  a 
napkin  ring  of  olive  wood,  some  blue  glass 
beads.  Jalila  herself  brought  a  small  patheti¬ 
cally  bad  wooden  camel  whose  hump  was  an 
ink-well  and  pressed  it  into  my  hands  with 
swift  words  in  Arabic. 

“That,”  translated  Andre,  “is  for  your 
mother  Virginia,  whose  mother  is  also  Vir¬ 
ginia.”  And  then  I  left  them  waving  a  hearty 
good-by  on  the  housetop. 


THE  MONASTERY 


I 


CHAPTER  XII 


1 

A  letter  from  Koren,  postmarked  Bey- 
rout,  was  waiting  for  me  at  the  Hotel  Saint 
J  ohn : 

I  have  received  your  letter  and  am  glad  you  are 
later  coming  north  to  Syria.  When  shall  that 
happen  ? 

In  Damascus,  I  have  seen  Arovni  but  have  not 
spoken  with  her.  There  are  such  questions  I  cannot 
write  about,  but  I  will  tell  you  when  I  see  you  again. 
To-morrow  my  brother  is  going  to  Paris.  In  my 
heart  is  always  storm. 

Yours, 

Koren. 

I  answered  this  letter,  and  then  climbing  to 
the  top  of  Olivet,  I  made  arrangements  with 
Mohammed  Jamel  for  the  journey  to  the 
ancient  monastery  of  Mar  Saba  in  the  Judaean 
wilderness. 

2 

The  sharp  clatter  of  donkeys’  feet  rose 
through  the  darkness  outside  the  hotel.  I 

133 


134  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


started  up.  Ten  minutes  to  four!  And  there 
was  Mohammed  Jamei  standing  at  the  door  of 
my  room,  looking  in  with  mild  reproach.  The 
idea,  he  explained,  was  to  arrive  at  our  destina¬ 
tion  before  the  sun  turned  the  wadies  into 
quivering  receptacles  for  the  heat.  However, 
at  four  o’clock  we  were  mounted  and  trotting 
down  the  narrow  streets  toward  the  Saint 
Stephen’s  Gate. 

As  we  turned  to  the  right  over  the  single- 
arched  bridge  across  the  Kedron,  it  was  ap¬ 
parent  that  the  work  on  the  new  church  beside 
Gethsemane  was  well  under  way,  as  Brother 
Julio  had  promised.  The  substructure  of  the 
old  basilica  had  been  reenforced  to  its  original 
size,  and  the  bases  of  the  new  pillars  were  laid 
exactly  in  the  places  of  the  old. 

Down  the  Jericho  road,  with  the  sun  behind 
them,  came  cavalcades  of  Beduins  from  be¬ 
yond  the  Jordan,  following  their  donkeys  and 
camels  laden  with  grain.  “How  much  like  a 
motion  picture!”  I  thought — the  Garden  of 
Allah ,  or  Kismet,  or  Barbary  Sheep!  And 
then  I  realized  what  a  strange  pass  we  have 
come  to  when  scenes  like  this  make  us  think 
not  about  themselves  but  about  their  imita¬ 
tions! 


THE  MONASTERY 


135 


A  half-turn  to  the  east  and  the  day  itself 
was  upon  us — tawny  rose,  with  vertical,  Ver¬ 
million  clouds  reaching  their  fingers  down  to 
the  horizon  and  steeping  them  in  flaming 
orange.  Against  that  orange  lay  the  wide, 
purple  band  of  the  Moab  hills.  Purple?  As 
purple  as  you  can  imagine  it,  with  a  faint  wash 
of  blue  mist  in  front  of  the  purple,  and  the 
sunlight  in  front  of  that,  streaming  magnifi¬ 
cently  over  twenty  miles  of  hill  and  valley  be¬ 
tween. 

It  was  not  yet  four-thirty.  “You  must  have 
risen  early,  Mohammed  Jamel,”  I  said. 

“Yes,  at  one  o’clock.  This  month  is  the 
month  of  Ramadan .  Mohammedan  man  must 
go  without  food  too  much  this  month.  The 
first  gun  is  at  one  o’clock  in  the  morning.  The 
second  gun  is  at  two.  After  two  o’clock,  no 
Mohammedan  man  can  eat  or  drink  something 
until  the  sun  goes  down  at  night.  Only  eight 
days  more.  That’s  good!” 

No  wonder  he  wanted  to  do  his  traveling 
before  the  heat  began!  We  turned  to  the 
right,  off  the  Jericho  road.  In  the  half-light 
the  brown,  parched  hills  flanking  the  valley 
rose  like  huge  folds  of  ancient,  faded  velvet. 
Here  and  there,  as  though  the  velvet  were 


136  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


worn  threadbare,  light  patches  of  rock  shone 
through  the  sun-scorched  weeds. 

3 

But  in  this  living,  palpitating  world  of  ours 
a  landscape  is  (as  a  friend  of  Ben  Jonson’s 
once  said)  only  a  stage-setting  for  the  things 
that  happen  to  mortals  in  it.  By  the  time  we 
reached  the  valley’s  base  two  enterprising 
troupes  of  fleas — the  Balboas  and  Pizzaros  of 
fleadom — had  left  their  native  habitat  on  which 
I  rode  and  were  circling  my  shoetops  in  a 
frenzy  of  discovery,  taking  frequent  samples 
of  the  new  territory  to  assure  themselves  that 
it  was  really  true.  It  was.  I  could  have  told 
them  that  myself.  At  last  I  descended.  I 
descended  from  the  right  side  of  the  donkey 
because  there  was  a  ravine  at  the  left.  I  sim¬ 
ply  threw  my  left  leg  over  the  animal’s  head 
and  slid  off.  That  was  the  kind  of  day  it  was, 
anyway. 

Whereupon  Mohammed  Jamel  immediately 
came  up  and  said  in  a  gentle  voice — a  too  gen¬ 
tle  voice — “It  is  better  to  get  off  from  the  left 
side.  You  see,  if  some  Arab  sees  you,  he  will 
think  that  you  can’t  ride.” 

We  went  on  in  silence.  Should  I  explain 


THE  MONASTERY 


1ST 


to  this  minion  that  I  had  dismounted  as  I  did 
partly  to  avoid  the  ravine  and  partly  from  ex¬ 
uberant  spirits?  Never.  Let  it  go!  Rise 
above  such  trivial  matters.  Still — “if  some 
Arab  sees  you,  he  will  think  that  you  can’t 
ride.”  Suddenly  I  remembered  that  Moham¬ 
med  J  am  el  himself  was  an  Arab.  How  warm 
it  was  in  the  valley!  .  .  . 

Along  came  a  flock  of  sheep  with  a  dozen 
lambs  frisking  at  their  mothers’  heels.  These 
had  small  cotton  bags  fastened  over  their 
noses  and  mouths,  making  their  frequent  at¬ 
tempts  toward  nourishment  in  vain. 

“Do  the  lambs  have  Ramadan  too?”  I  asked, 
with  attempted  j  ocularity . 

Mohammed  Jamel  exploded  into  pitying 
laughter.  The  sheep  were  going  to  market,  he 
explained,  and  those  with  much  milk  would  be 
spared,  while  the  others  would  shortly  become 
mutton.  Without  knowing  it,  the  lambs  wTere 
doing  their  mothers  considerable  service. 

The  road,  following  the  bottom  of  the  valley, 
grew  more  and  more  rugged.  “You  like  to 
ride  again?”  Mohammed  Jamel  asked.  I  told 
him  no,  that  I  enjoyed  walking,  for  I  had  once 
been  in  the  infantry. 

“Oh,  that  is  nothing,”  he  said,  dismissing  me 


138  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


with  a  wave  of  the  hand.  “I’ll  tell  you  some¬ 
thing.”  And  he  prepared  in  a  pompous,  elab¬ 
orate  way  to  relate  a  narrative.  But  not  before 
I  had  thought  to  myself,  “Mohammed  Jamel, 
— Holy  Land  or  no  Holy  Land,  you  make  me 
sick.” 

4 

“  When  I  was  in  the  Turkish  army — 1917 — 
my  uncle  died  in  Jerusalem.  He  was  a  great 
sheik.  He  owned  plenty  of  country  around 
everywhere — cattle,  sheep,  and  lands.  I  heard 
at  Nablus  that  he  is  dead;  so  I  went  to  my 
captain  and  said,  ‘My  uncle  is  dead.  I  must 
go  to  Jerusalem.’ 

“  ‘I  can’t  let  you  go,’  the  captain  told  me, 
‘because  General  Fogenheim,  of  the  German 
army,  is  coming  to  inspect  to-morrow.’  But  I 
say  to  him” — this  very  fiercely — “if  he  does 
not  let  me  go,  I  will  go  in  three  minutes  any¬ 
way.  So  he  told  me,  ‘All  right.  GO !’  I  started 
for  Jerusalem.  I  started  over  the  hills  at  four 
o’clock  and  got  to  Jerusalem — what  time  you 
think?  At  half  an  hour  after  noon.  The  dis¬ 
tance  is  forty  miles!” 

Now  I  happened  to  know  that  Nablus, 
which  is  the  ancient  Shechem,  is  not  forty 
miles  by  road  from  Jerusalem  but  thirty-six. 


THE  MONASTERY 


139 


Besides,  he  had  come  “over  the  hills,”  a  route 
which  would  cut  down  the  road  distance  by  five 
miles  at  least.  So  I  thought  to  myself  again, 
“Mohammed  Jamel,  you  not  only  make  me 
sick,  but  you  are  a  most  shameless  liar  as  well. 
Before  I  get  back  to  Jerusalem,  there  is  a 
walk  I  am  going  to  take  to  the  Dead  Sea,  with 
Christian  distances  to  it,  a  walk  you  have  said 
you  w7ere  afraid  to  take.  And  if,  when  I  get 
through,  you  say  'Pooh — that  is  nothing!’  I 
shall  be  very  much  tempted  to  punch  you  on 
the  nose!” 

The  way  that  we  were  following  wound  tor¬ 
tuously  up  the  side  of  a  rock-strewn  valley. 
Ten  minutes’  climb  along  a  somewhat  better 
road  brought  us  to  the  top.  And  there,  slightly 
above  us,  resting  on  great  crags  six  hundred 
feet  above  the  canyon’s  base,  was  the  monas¬ 
tery. 

5 

A  knock  on  the  heavily  barred  door  sum¬ 
moned  the  gatekeeper.  He  took  the  official 
envelope  which  I  had  brought  from  the  Patri¬ 
arch  in  Jerusalem  and  departed,  returning  in 
a  few  moments  with  a  large,  stately,  black- 
bearded  monk  whose  imposing  walk  and  pres¬ 
ence  were  moderated  by  twinkling  black  eyes 


140  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


and  a  predisposition  to  smile.  The  monk  led 
the  way  into  an  open  court  above  the  canyon 
and  up  a  flight  of  stairs  on  the  farther  side. 
Then,  extracting  a  great  jangling  bunch  of 
keys  from  his  belt,  he  opened  a  door  and  ad¬ 
mitted  me  to  a  long,  high-vaulted  room  with 
windows  and  divans  running  along  three  sides. 
Pillows  lay  along  the  divans  at  regular  inter¬ 
vals  of  about  the  length  of  a  man,  and  in  an 
alcove  at  the  end  of  the  room  stood  an  iron 
bed.  At  a  pinch,  the  apartment  would  hold 
ten  guests. 

“Sit  you,”  said  the  good  brother.  “I  spick 
Englees  not  mooch.  One  other  monk,  he  make 
Englees  very  good.  I  go  bring.” 

The  pictures  about  the  room  were  somewhat 
militant  for  a  monastery;  two  were  battle 
scenes  of  the  Turco-Greek  War  of  1912,  two 
showed  stirring  moments  of  the  Spanish- 
American  War,  and  two  more  depicted  the 
high  points  of  the  Boer  conflict,  one  of  which 
was  a  Greek  rendering  of  the  Belief  of  Lady¬ 
smith.  (How  speechless  with  indignation  the 
gentlemen  of  General  Buller’s  staff  would  be 
to  find  themselves  all  carrying  rifles!) 

The  stately  brother  returned  with  his  con¬ 
frere — a  tall,  sallow  young  man  in  a  black  robe 


THE  MONASTERY 


141 


like  the  other,  with  high  forehead  and  long, 
curling  beard.  “Yes,  1  speak  English.  I  am 
Brother  Nikeforos,  and  this  is  Brother  Area- 
dios.”  Then  he  explained  most  amiably  that 
this  was  my  room  and  that  I  was  to  make  my¬ 
self  quite  at  home.  Their  ways  were  simple, 
but  they  would  do  what  they  could.  Brother 
Arcadios  had  charge  of  the  guest  room  and 
would  take  care  of  me. 

“You  speak  excellent  English,  Brother 
Nikeforos,”  I  said. 

T  am  a  citizen  of  the  United  States  ”  he 
answered.  “After  I  left  Greece,  I  lived  in 
America  for  fifteen  years.  I  would  be  there 
now  if  it  were  not  more  important  to  save  my 
soul”  ( !) 

“Do  you  like  living  here?”  I  inquired. 

A  shadow  crossed  his  face.  “I  must  like  it. 
That  is  the  right  way.”  Then  he  told  me  the 
round  of  his  days.  It  might  have  been  taken 
from  the  roster  of  the  devout  Saint  Saba  him¬ 
self,  for  whom  the  monastery  is  named.  In 
every  twenty-four  hours  there  were  not  less 
than  nine  of  ritual  and  psalmody,  and  six  of 
those  hours  of  worship  took  place  between 
midnight  and  dawn! 

“It  is  not  long,”  he  said.  “What  else  is 


142  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


there  to  do?  Of  course  there  are  certain  tasks. 
I,  for  example,  every  five  or  six  days,  must 
bake  three  hundred  loaves  of  bread  for  the 
forty-two  monks  here.  But  our  general  sup¬ 
plies  come  from  the  Patriarch  in  Jerusalem. 
Once  the  monastery  was  very  rich.  From 
lands  in  Boumania  alone  we  had  an  income  of 
eleven  thousand  pounds  a  year.  But  the  Turks 
came  and  killed  all  the  monks;  so  the  estates 
went  to  the  Patriarch.  Now  he  gives  us  our 
food  (though  it  does  not  take  much  food  here 
to  keep  a  man  up  because  it  is  very  hot) .  We 
have  one  meal  a  day;  on  Saturday  and  Sun¬ 
day  we  eat  twice.” 

The  jolly  brother  Arcadios  was  standing 
by,  absorbing  as  much  of  the  conversation  as 
his  limited  knowledge  of  English  would  per¬ 
mit.  Now  his  face  broke  into  wreathed  smiles. 
“Yes,”  he  said,  “Sat’day,  Sunday,  eat  twice. 
To-morrow — Sat’day !” 


6 

A  desolate,  savage  landscape — a  titanic 
ground-swell  of  stone  topped  with  vast  gray- 
and-ochre  stone  billows — surrounded  the  mon¬ 
astery.  In  the  refraction  of  the  sun’s  intense 
heat  the  hilltops  seemed  to  sway  and  reel;  they 


THE  MONASTERY 


143 


gave  the  impression  of  crowding  ominously  in. 
Everywhere  the  rock  was  eroded  to  pitiless, 
honeycombed  surfaces.  When  one  fragment 
fell  against  another,  it  gave  forth  a  sharp 
metallic  note.  Still  greater  hills  like  earthy 
tumors  sprawled  away  into  the  distance.  This 
was  the  Judaean  wilderness.  Through  the 
middle  of  its  desolation  ran  the  ash-colored 
canyon  with  precipitous  sides  cutting  six  hun¬ 
dred  feet  into  the  rock.  High  above  rose  the 
rugged  buildings  of  the  monastery. 

Along  the  walls  of  the  canyon,  numerous 
caves  were  visible,  some  of  which  have  endured 
the  rigors  of  fifteen  centuries.  In  or  about  the 
year  460  a.  d.  a  young  monk  of  eighteen  or 
twenty  years  named  Saba,  while  sleeping  not 
far  from  this  place,  was  directed  by  the  Virgin 
to  build  himself  a  cave  in  the  can  von.  Others 
joined  him  until  in  the  course  of  a  few  years 
the  gorge  contained  some  six  thousand  her¬ 
mits  under  the  rule  of  Saba.  Each  lived  in 
his  own  cave,  but  (according  to  Brother 
Nikeforos)  they  dined  together  on  Sundays  in 
a  general  refectory.  The  fame  of  their  leader 
spread,  and  shortly  the  presiding  Patriarch  at 
Jerusalem  sent  Saba  to  Constantinople  to  ad¬ 
just  certain  difficult  matters  with  the  Em- 


144  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


peror,  Justinian.  The  abbot  seems  not  only 
to  have  been  a  devout  man  but  a  diplomat  as 
well.  Before  he  came  away  he  had  trium¬ 
phantly  settled  the  Patriarch’s  difficulties  and 
also  arranged  with  Justinian  for  a  church,  a 
bakery,  and  a  watchtower  above  the  canyon. 
Thus  the  monastery  began. 


CHAPTER  XIII 


1 

How  any  man  could  live  for  fifteen  years  in 
the  United  States  of  America  and  still  retain 
the  fourth-century  ascetic  principles  of  Saint 
Augustine  was  something  of  a  puzzle.  I  in¬ 
quired  further  of  Brother  Nikeforos. 

“When  I  went  to  America  I  worked  for 
several  years  in  a  New  York  hotel  on  the  cor¬ 
ner  of  Thirty-third  Street  and  Fifth  Avenue. 
Then,”  he  continued,  “I  went  to  Atlanta, 
Georgia.  At  Atlanta  I  saw  a  Greek  religious 
book  called  The  Sinner's  Salvation.  That 
was  the  first  religious  book  I  ever  saw.  I  had 
looked  at  some  praying  books,  but  I  never  saw 
one  that  told  you  just  what  to  do.  It  was  a 
kind  of  explanation  book.  It  said  that  if  you 
did  not  do  the  right  things,  you  would  go  to 
Hell,  to  Eternal  Fire.  .  .  .  Then  I  sent  to 
Athens  for  religious  books,  ten  or  twenty. 
Especially  I  liked  Saint  John  Chrysostom,  of 
the  fifth  century.  After  I  had  read  them  it 
came  to  my  mind  to  leave  the  world.  .  .  When 
I  had  a  chance  I  came.” 

145 


146  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


After  this  explanation,  Brother  Nikeforos 
was  easier  to  understand.  He  might  almost 
have  stepped  from  an  early  chapter  of  Wil¬ 
liam  James’  Varieties  of  Religious  Ex¬ 
perience.  His  deeply  latent  instinct,  sharply 
awakened,  had  reacted  to  the  grim,  mediaeval 
message  which  was  at  hand.  Because  he  knew 
no  other,  that  message  had  seemed  to  Brother 
Nikeforos  a  dazzling,  illimitable  light. 

2 

But  Brother  Arcadios — he  of  the  black, 
bristling  beard — took  matters  not  quite  so  seri¬ 
ously.  He  showed  me  the  monastery  with  un¬ 
feigned  pleasure,  its  chapels,  its  monks  at  their 
meals  or  devotions,  its  kitchens,  and  particu¬ 
larly  its  church,  every  square  foot  of  which  was 
decorated  with  saints,  bishops,  angels,  devils, 
and  martyrs.  An  ancient  picture  of  a  very 
Greek-looking  Saint  Peter  unlocking  the 
gates  of  Paradise  was  enough  like  Arcadios 
himself  to  have  been  his  own  portrait.  My 
mentioning  the  fact  pleased  him  greatly. 

“I  be  eleven  year  in  monastery.  Three  year 
I  be  Peter,”  he  said. 

We  came  to  a  small  cave  along  one  of  the 
high  corridors  where  Saint  Saba  himself — or 


THE  MONASTERY 


147 


/ 


Mar  Saba,  as  he  is  called  in  Palestine-had 
lived.  Outside  the  cave  a  picture  showed  the 
saint  sitting  side  by  side  with  a  lion.  Brother 
Arcadios  explained. 

“This  the  cavey  of  Saint  Saba.  One  day 
Saint  Saba  come  in  the  cavey,  see  a  leo  sit! 
'Hello,  leo,  how  you  come  this  place?  You 
like  stay?  All  right,  I  sleep  this  side  cavey, 
you  sleep  this  side  cavey.  All  right?  All 
right!  Finish /" 

There  was  another  painting  of  the  saint  and 
the  lion  inside  the  “cavey.”  Not  only  had  the 
well-intentioned  artist  never  seen  a  lion,  but 
in  some  inexplicable  way  (and  this  was  almost 
too  much  after  Brother  Arcadios’  description) 
he  based  his  leo  on  a  very  imperfect  under¬ 
standing  of  a  certain  blue-faced,  red-shanked, 
wrinkle-nosed  type  of  African  baboon. 

3 

The  wells  of  the  monastery  were  Arcadios’ 
particular  pride.  Actually,  they  were  only 
cisterns,  but  in  the  Palestine  manner  he  called 
them  wells.  There  were  ten,  and  they  received 
sufficient  water  during  the  rainy  season  to 
supply  the  monastery  for  three  years.  I  asked 
the  old  question  about  the  water  being  good. 


148  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


“Very  good,”  he  assured  me.  “Sit  you.  I 
tell  about.” 

“One  day  from  Bethlehem  come  doctor.  He 
say  to  me,  ‘Brothe  Arcadios,  how  many  well 
you  got?’ 

“  ‘Oh,  ten,  maybe  ’leven.’ 

“He  say,  ‘You  got  here  small  thing  who 
go  “Bzzzzzzz!”  in  air?  Sit  on  hand?  Sit  on 
face?  Bite?’ 

“I  say,  ‘Oh,  maybe  got  few.’ 

“He  say,  ‘You  also  got  here  small  black  one. 
Jump  very  fast?  Bite?’ 

“I  say,  ‘Oh,  maybe  got  three,  four.’ 

“Then  he  say,  ‘Brothe  Arcadios,  small  baby 
from  thing  who  say  “Bzzzzzzz,”  he  live  in  well! 
Small  baby  from  thing  who  jump  very  fast, 
he  live  in  well  too!  Small  baby  grow  up,  he 
bite  sick  donkey.  Then  he  bite  man.  Man  get 
sick  like  donkey  too.  Brothe  Arcadios — we 
must  make  finish  those  small  baby  in  well !’ 

“Then  he  show  me  two  bottle.  ‘Put  a  little 
of  this  thing  in  well,  he  say.  ‘This  thing  spread 
self  on  top  water  very,  very  thin.  Small  baby, 
he  come  up  to  catch  a  few  breath — finish !y 

“I  smell  stuff  in  bottle.  I  make  a  laughing. 
I  say,  ‘Nobody  ever  get  sick  here.  Maybe 


THE  MONASTERY 


149 


now  we  all  be  finish!5  But  doctor  say,  ‘Never 
mine,  Brothe  Arcadios — put !3 33 

Areadios  got  up,  bubbling  with  mirth,  and 
led  the  way  to  a  little  room  back  of  the  refec¬ 
tory.  There  on  an  upper  shelf  stood  two 
black  bottles.  He  gave  a  thunderous  chuckle. 

“I  put!33  he  said.  “I  put  on  shelf!33  And 
unless  the  monastery  gets  a  more  modern  and 
less  lovable  Saint  Peter,  there  the  bottles  are 
likely  to  remain. 


4 

The  guest  book  of  the  monastery  lies  on  a 
small  table  near  the  alcove.  For  twenty-five 
years  it  has  received  the  autographs  of  travel¬ 
ers  from  the  farthest  corners  of  the  earth.  But 
is  the  first  entry  some  such  name  as  Mikros 
Karajas  of  Salonika,  or  Dimitri  Karbounis  of 
Damas?  Not  so.  The  address  of  the  first 
entry  is  Falls  City ,  Nebraska ,  £7.  S.  A.,  and 
the  gentleman’s  name  is  Smith!  There  are 
other  entries  of  interest. 

“Ibrahim  Banayot  Aamur  first  visited  Mar 
Saba  for  the  second  time  on  April  11,  1922.” 

W.  Wendelt  of  Berlin  found  the  monas¬ 
tery  Gemutlich  in  1910,  with  a  big  “Deutsch- 


150  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


land”  half  way  across  the  page.  (Perhaps 
that  was  only  antidotal  to  “Charles  Martel,” 
who,  with  the  appropriate  address,  “France,” 
had  been  there  in  1905.) 

“Archie  Bell,  Cleveland  Plain  Dealer ,  U. 
S.  A.,  May  28th,  1914.” 

“Abrahim  Daronti”  (this  in  French), 
“President  of  all  the  Earth  and  half  the  Sky, 
came  to  Mar  Saba  on  the  2nd  of  February.” 
(I  am  afraid,  Abrahim,  that  you  imbibed  a 
little  too  freely  of  the  exhilarating  wine  of  the 
monastery.  Either  that — or  you  speak  in  rare 
symbols. ) 

Hermann  Mayer  was  also  a  symbolist: 

“Wer  des  Leben’s  Unverstand  mit 
Wehmut  will  genieszen 
Der  stelle  sich  mal  auf  den  Kopf 
IJnd  stempeP  mit  den  Fiiszen.” 

Then  in  a  large,  simple  hand,  “Many  thanks 
for  the  kindness  of  the  monks  to  a  weary  Scot. 
James  Hay,  Captain  of  the  4th  Gordon  High¬ 
landers.” 

No  wonder  he  was  weary;  July ,  1918! 

And  then  the  austere  signature,  “F.  Luther 
Long,  Priest,”  neutralized  by  another  bit  of 
philosophy  in  a  Teutonic  hand: 


THE  MONASTERY 


151 


“Wie  Einer  ist,  so  ist  sein  Gott; 

Drum  ward  auch  Gott  so  oft  zu  Spott !” 

And  so  they  followed  each  other — from 
Amsterdam,  Tokyo,  Lyons,  Copenhagen, 
Cambridge,  Berkeley,  Capetown,  Essen, 
Basel,  Pittsburgh,  Cairo — some  exploding 
into  verse  or  bars  of  music,  some  saying  their 
say  wTith  prose,  others  with  sketches.  There 
was  a  water-color  drawing  of  an  angel  signed 
— but  not  by  the  artist — “Fra  Angelico.”  For 
the  impiety  of  that  forged  signature  I  am  in¬ 
clined  to  accuse  Hermann  Mayer  or  Abrahim 
Daronti.  In  the  hand  of  F.  Luther  Long, 
Priest,  appeared  three  feminine  entries:  “Miss 
Drysdale,  Miss  Oglethorpe,  and  Miss  Wal¬ 
ker,”  followed  by  the  cabalistic  parenthesis, 
“(In  the  Tower).”  I  was  still  puzzling  over 
that  when  I  saw  the  signature  of  the  Military 
Governor  of  Palestine,  “Ronald  Storrs,  Gov¬ 
ernor.  Monica  Storrs  in  the  tower .” 

“What  is  this — in  the  tower V3  I  inquired 
of  Brother  Nikeforos,  who  was  talking  near  by 
with  Arcadios. 

“Do  you  see  the  square  tower  outside  of  the 
wall?  It  is  for  women.  They  cannot  enter 
the  monastery.  It  is  the  rule  of  Saint  Saba,” 


152  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


“Have  any  women  ever  broken  the  rule?” 
I  asked. 

“Yes,  two.  About  twenty  years  ago,  a  prin¬ 
cess  from  Austria  came  riding  here  with  her 
officers.  When  she  heard  that  women  could 
not  come  in,  she  was  very  angry  and  said  that 
she  must  see  the  head  monk.  Her  officers 
called  the  head  monk  to  her,  and  he  told  her, 
It  is  not  our  rule,  it  is  the  rule  of  Saint  Saba, 
a  thousand  years  ago.  If  you  wish,  we  will 
put  a  table  with  the  best  that  we  have,  in  the 
shade  of  the  tower  for  you.’  She  said,  ‘All 
right’;  but  after  he  was  gone  she  kept  think¬ 
ing  about  it  like  a  woman  does  and  became 
even  angrier  than  before  and  stamped  her  foot 
and  struck  her  boot  with  her  riding  whip.  Then 
she  said  to  her  officers,  T  am  going  in.’  They 
saluted  and  said,  ‘We  will  do  what  you  tell  us; 
but  we  do  not  wish  to  harm  these  monks.’  ‘You 
go  ahead,’  she  said,  ‘I  will  follow.’ 

“They  started  in,  but  when  they  came  a  little 
way  she  began  shaking  all  over  from  being  so 
angry  before.  Then  she  went  back  to  where 
the  table  was  and  overturned  it  and  said,  ‘We 
will  not  stop  here  at  all;  we  will  go  back  to 
Jerusalem.’  So  she  rode  away  with  her 
officers.” 


^Uhe  sunlit  tower  beyond  the  outer  wall  of  the  monastery  of  St.  Saba 
in  the  Judaean  wilderness  is  reserved  for  visitors  of  the  gentler  and 
(■ according  to  Brother  Arcadios )  the  more  dangerous  sex. 


ft: 


THE  MONASTERY 


153 


He  stopped  and  looked  at  Brother  Arca- 
dios  for  confirmation.  The  latter  puffed  out 
his  cheeks,  stuck  out  his  lower  lip  in  the  drollest 
way  imaginable,  and  with  wide  open  eyes 
nodded  up  and  down  as  much  as  to  say,  “Ter¬ 
rible  behavior,  that!  But  after  all — what  could 
you  expect?” 

“Who  was  the  second  lady?” 

“Oh,  she  was  a  Russian.  She  came  with 
some  men  and  was  dressed  just  like  a  man. 
The  gatekeeper  was  pretty  old  and  was  not 
used  to  such  things.  He  thought  she  was  a 
man  too  and  let  her  in  with  the  rest.  But  be¬ 
fore  she  did  anything,  the  chief  monk  saw  her 
and  made  them  all  get  out.  Then  they  got  on 
their  horses  to  go  away — but  what  do  you 
think?  Her  horse  stood  up  on  its  hind  legs  and 
she  fell  off*  and  broke  her  hand.  You  see,” 
he  added  simply,  “it  is  better  for  ladies  to  stay 
in  the  tower.” 

There  were  some  Greek  magazines  on  the 
table,  one  of  which,  after  the  American  man¬ 
ner,  bore  the  portrait  of  a  famous  beauty  on 
the  cover. 

“Brother  Arcadios,”  I  said  to  the  other 
monk,  “here  is  a  lady!  You  know  very  well 
that  she  ought  to  be  in  the  tower.” 


154  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


Brother  Arcadios  chuckled  a  prodigious 
chuckle.  “Oh,  this  wife  no  talking”  he  said. 

5 

Every  day  those  kindly  old  fellows  visited 
with  me  for  hours.  I  could  not  even  get  them 
to  take  the  naps  they  should  have  had  in  the 
afternoon.  The  nightly  services,  beginning  at 
midnight  and  ending  at  daybreak,  were  at¬ 
tended  by  all  the  monks  in  the  monastery.  Ar¬ 
cadios,  who  had  a  rich,  beautiful  voice,  would 
take  an  important  part  in  the  ceremonies  at 
night  and  then,  when  morning  came,  would 
minister  to  my  wants  with  almost  incredible 
good  nature.  At  meal  time  he  brought  such 
viands  as  rice  soup  made  with  sour  milk,  black 
bread,  fried  eggs  swimming  in  olive  oil, 
cheese,  wine  with  an  aromatic  bouquet  from 
the  vineyards  of  the  monastery,  and  magnifi¬ 
cent  cafe  a  la  Turca.  Then,  fairly  bursting 
with  suppressed  conversation,  he  would  sit 
down  beside  me  while  I  ate. 

“I  in  America  once.” 

“What!” 

“Yes — I  in  America.  Six  month.  Before 
I  be  monk,  my  name,  Athanasias.  In  America, 
I  don’t  say  Athanasias.  I  say  Athos  for  easy. 


THE  MONASTERY 


155 


“In  America  I  go  to  school  two  hour  each 
night,  and  man  teach  me  ah,  e ,  i,  ou,  woo — 
like  this.  No  spik  one  word  Englees.  Always 
ah,  e,  i,  ou,  woo .  After  twent’  days,  I  quit. 
Man  meet  me  one  day  in  street  and  say, 
‘Athos,  why  you  no  come  school?’ 

“I  say”  (and  here  he  wrinkled  up  his  face 
into  the  expression  of  a  Greek  tragic  mask), 
‘Oh,  must  work  too  hard  in  shop.’  Then  man 
say,  ‘Too  bad,  Athos,  you  good  man  in 
school.’  ” 

Arcadios  leaned  over  and  gave  me  a  friendly 
nudge.  “You  know  why  I  not  go  school?”  he 
whispered. 

“No — why  not?” 

“Too  mooch  ah,  e,  i,  ou,  WOO!3' 

6 

While  I  sat  at  dinner  with  my  two  com¬ 
panions  on  the  night  before  my  departure  from 
the  monastery,  the  abbot  came  in  accompanied 
by  another  whitebearded  old  monk  who  had 
been  in  the  place  for  forty  years.  The  latter 
said  very  little,  but  sat  leaning  on  his  long  cane 
and  looking  about  very  keenly,  first  at  one, 
then  at  another  of  us.  The  abbot  remarked 
that  they  had  not  been  able  to  do  much  in  the 


156  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


way  of  comfort,  but  that  he  hoped  I  had  been 
content.  A  color  sketch  which  I  had  made  of 
the  monastery  was  still  unpacked  so  that  it 
might  dry  until  the  last  minute.  Brother 
Nikeforos  explained  it  to  the  abbot,  holding 
it  a  few  inches  from  the  venerable  nose  and 
going  over  it  as  though  it  were  a  railroad  map. 
I  received  the  peculiar  impression  that  as  long 
as  the  details  were  clear  it  made  no 
difference  at  all  whether  the  drawing  were 
right  side  up  or  not!  “This  is  the  tower  outside 
the  wall;  this  is  the  window  in  it.  This  is  the 
back  of  the  church ;  this  is  Brother  Archimano- 
vite’s  room  .  .  .”  I  could  follow  his  Greek  by 
his  finger.  He  went  over  the  thing  like  an 
expert  in  the  Geographical  Survey.  Then, 
after  wishing  me  a  pleasant  journey,  the  older 
monks  said  good-by,  and  left  me  alone  with 
Nikeforos  and  Arcadios. 

During  the  days  at  the  monastery  I  had 
been  considering  the  possibility  of  walking 
across  the  Judeean  Wilderness  to  the  Dead 
Sea  and  then  to  the  Jordan  and  to  Jericho. 
That  reflection  had  been  silent,  for  I  felt  sure 
that  my  two  friends,  out  of  the  kindness  of 
their  hearts,  would  try  to  veto  the  project.  I 
had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  if  it  were  to 


157 


THE  MONASTERY 

be  done  in  one  continuous  journey,  it  would 
be  necessary  to  start  from  Mar  Saba  at  night. 
For  the  most  part,  that  would  work  out  very 
well.  The  donkey-boy  whom  Mohammed 
Jamel  had  sent  from  Jerusalem  expected  to 
start  back  at  two  in  the  morning.  It  would 
be  easy  enough,  after  I  left  the  monastery,  to 
send  him  on  to  the  city  and  start  out  across  the 
wilderness  alone. 

But  I  needed  a  water  bottle.  The  land 
around  the  Dead  Sea  is  the  lowest  not  covered 
by  water  on  the  earth’s  surface — twelve  hun¬ 
dred  feet  below  sea  level.  I  knew  the  heat  was 
intense.  If  something  unforeseen  should  oc¬ 
cur  in  the  wilderness,  I  might  need  a  water 
bottle  very  badly.  I  resolved  to  tell  the  two 
monks  my  plan. 

At  first  they  were  quite  as  shocked  as 
Mohammed  Jamel  had  been  and  Saliba  at  the 
hotel.  I  did  not  know  my  way  across  the 
wilderness.  The  Arabs  were  very  bad.  They 
would  take  my  money,  my  clothes,  my  shoes. 
“They  will  leave  you  only  your  pants,”  said 
Nikeforos  with  great  earnestness.  We  argued 
for  some  time.  At  last  I  took  out  all  the 
money  that  I  had  about  me — two  English 
pounds  and  a  few  piastres. 


158  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


“One  of  these  pounds  goes  to  the  donkey- 
boy  to-morrow  morning,”  I  said.  “The  other 
is  all  I  shall  have  in  my  pocket.  This  is  an 
old  suit  of  clothes.  Look  at  my  shoes.  You 
can  see  for  yourselves  that  they  are  beginning 
to  wear  through.  What  if  they  do  take  my 
clothes?” 

They  sat  quite  still  a  moment  looking  at  each 
other.  Then  their  eyes  lit  up,  and  would  you 
believe  it,  those  two  bearded  old  fellows  en¬ 
tered  into  the  plan  like  a  couple  of  schoolboys ! 
I  told  them  I  needed  a  water  bottle.  “Any¬ 
thing  that  we  have  is  yours,”  they  said,  and 
Arcadios  hurried  away  to  fetch  one.  There 
was  no  cork.  Nikeforos  ingeniously  cut  one 
from  a  large  spool  and  covered  it  with  cloth. 
“You  learn  to  do  things  when  you  travel,”  he 
said.  ( I  had  a  strong  suspicion  that  he  wished 
he  were  traveling  too.)  Together  they  brought 
a  lot  of  bread  and  some  eggs  and  some  chunks 
of  salami .  “I  never  eat  him,”  said  Arcadios, 
referring  to  the  last,  “but  sometime  Italian 
monk  come  here.  He  eat  salami  too  mooch.” 

They  helped  me  sling  the  earthen  water- 
flask  with  a  strip  of  cloth  and  then  looked  at 
the  equipment  which  I  had  spread  out — 
matches,  a  pocket  flashlight,  a  few  dates,  the 


THE  MONASTERY 


159 


food  they  had  given  me,  a  notebook,  fountain 
pen,  cigarettes,  and  a  small  volume  called 
4 'Arabic  Self-taught.” 

"Aren’t  you  going  to  take  a  bag?”  they 
asked.  But  I  said  no,  that  the  idea  was  to 
travel  as  lightly  as  possible.  When  I  once  got 
out  of  the  wilderness  onto  the  plain  of  the 
Dead  Sea,  I  would  not  want  the  added  weight 
of  a  bag.  Then,  when  there  was  nothing  more 
to  do  or  say,  they  bade  me  a  hearty  good  night. 

7 

It  was  dark  when  I  awoke.  From  the 
church  off  of  the  courtyard  below  came  the 
voice  of  Arcadios,  singing.  It  faltered  a  little, 
and  the  colorless  voices  of  the  others  blended 
with  it  in  the  response  like  voices  in  a  dream. 
By  that  sign  the  day  was  still  far  off,  for  I  had 
noticed  that  toward  dawn  the  song  always 
grew  stronger  and  more  hopeful  with  a  gentle 
and  touching  confidence. 

Presently,  when  I  was  dressed  and  the  bag¬ 
gage  ready,  Nikeforos  and  Arcadios  came  out 
of  the  church  and  up  the  stairs  with  a  lantern 
to  see  me  off.  The  donkey-boy,  sleeping  with 
some  Arabs  outside  the  walls,  was  not  yet  up. 
No  matter.  Arcadios  would  pay  him  for  me 


160  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


and  send  him  on  his  way.  So  the  gatekeeper 
swung  open  the  small  iron  door;  we  said 
good-by,  and  I  went  down  the  side  of  the 
gorge.  Nikeforos  accompanied  me  for  a  little 
way,  not  sorry  perhaps  to  be  outside  the  walls 
for  a  few  moments.  Strange — that  a  man  who 
had  been  all  over  the  world  should  find  his 
resting  place  in  that  bit  of  gorge  without  even 
a  glimpse  of  the  horizon. 

I  wish  I  were  going  with  you,”  he  said  with 
a  sigh.  tcOf  course,  I  would  want  to  come 
back.  .  . 


JOHN  SPEAKS 


I  take  my  sacrament  upon  the  hills 
Beneath  a  star-swept  wilderness  of  sky , 
Where  silence ,  and  the  night  wind  passing  by 
Bring  to  my  soul  such  brooding  peace  as  fill 
AU  vast  and  open  spaces  of  the  night . 

So  worshiping with  calm ,  unbended  head , 

I  feel  all  man-made  humbleness  and  pride 
Slip  like  an  outworn  garment  to  my  side 
And  I  stand  forth  as  in  a  radiant  light 
Naked  and  unashamed — and  hallowed . 


THE  WILDERNESS 


CHAPTER  XIV 


1 

I  did  not  follow  the  Wadi-en-Nar,  which 
forms  the  deep  canyon  at  the  monastery.  It 
runs  nearly  southeast.  If  I  were  to  strike  the 
north  end  of  the  Dead  Sea,  I  must  travel  to 
the  northeast.  I  climbed  a  high  crag  at  a 
bend  in  the  canyon  and  looked  at  my  watch. 
It  was  three.  A  quarter  moon  had  risen  from 
the  south  and  was  faintly  shining  over  the  dark 
slopes  and  black  valleys  before  me.  Not  a 
sound.  No  sign  of  life  of  any  kind — wilder¬ 
ness.  I  followed  the  almost  imperceptible 
trail  down  into  the  valley  beyond. 

An  hour  later  the  Great  Dipper  rose  to  the 
left  above  the  hills.  Now  and  then  the  north 
star  riding  very  low  came  into  sight  for  an 
instant  between  two  crests.  I  stopped  a 
moment  to  drink  from  the  earthen  bottle.  The 
spool  came  out  with  a  swish  of  curling  water 
and  a  deep,  resonant  pong .  It  was  just  such 
a  pleasant  response  as  a  well  makes  to  the  low¬ 
ering  of  the  bucket.  In  spite  of  having  rested 
against  my  side,  the  bottle  and  its  contents 

165 


166  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


were  several  degrees  cooler  than  the  air,  for  it 
was  made  of  porous  earth  which  allowed  the 
water  to  seep  through  and  cool  it  off.  Quite 
content,  I  went  on. 


2 

Before  anyone  actually  writes  a  book  he  is 
continually  thinking  out  ideas  that  will  con¬ 
vey  as  well  as  possible  what  he  expects  to  say ; 
but  when  it  comes  to  the  writing,  it  often 
works  out  quite  differently.  For  example,  I 
knew  that  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  and  John  the 
Baptist,  too,  had  come  into  this  wilderness, 
and  I  had  thought,  when  I  saw  it  from  the 
crest  of  the  monastery,  that  I  would  say  how 
pitiless  it  would  be  at  night  for  anyone  who 
was  battling  with  a  great  problem. 

But  now  I  stopped  and  looked  at  the  stars 
and  at  the  night  spreading  like  a  spangled 
tapestry  over  the  hills  and  valleys.  As  I  stood 
there  a  desert  lark  far  off  to  the  left,  knowing 
better  than  I  that  dawn  was  near,  began  his 
morning  hymn.  Then  I  thought  to  myself: 
“No,  I  cannot  say  that  it  is  pitiless.  For  here 
in  the  wilderness,  in  all  the  surrounding  depths 
of  night  with  the  stars  attendant,  the  Nazarene 
Carpenter  must  have  been  very  near  the  bor- 


THE  WILDERNESS 


167 


derland  of  that  vast,  impenetrable  region 
which  some  men  have  called  Elysium,  and 
some  Nirvana,  and  some  Paradise,  but  which 
all  men  know  for  the  dwelling-place  of  the 
Soul.” 

Light  in  the  east!  Not  color — just  the 
merest  shifting  of  night’s  curtain.  Now  the 
stars  ahead  were  growing  fainter.  As  I 
crossed  a  shallow  valley  in  the  middle  of  a 
wide  plain  there  came  a  damp,  dank  smell  like 
that  of  a  subterranean  vault — the  cool,  enfold¬ 
ing  night  vapors  of  the  Dead  Sea.  And  now, 
on  the  eastern  horizon,  glowed  a  spatter  of 
light  like  molten  iron  splashing  up  before  the 
cupola  of  a  great  smelting  furnace.  I  looked 
back.  The  hills  of  the  wilderness  already  had 
the  sun-color  on  them — cadmium  orange 
mixed  with  burnt  sienna,  and  overlaid  with 
flakes  of  light  crimson.  Then  the  sun  rose, 
smoking,  and  peered  keenly  at  me  under  the 
edge  of  my  sun  helmet. 


3 

The  plain  lay  encircled  by  mountains.  Its 
soil,  dry  and  hard,  was  soil,  however,  and  free 
from  rock.  Brown,  crackling  plants  covered 


168  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


it — wild  esparto  grass  and  sage,  and  the  skele¬ 
tons  of  daisies.  But  if  the  fresh  water  of  irri¬ 
gation  should  come  into  that  plain  (as  some 
day  it  is  bound  to  come),  then  Wilderness 
there  were  assuredly  Paradise  enow. 

At  the  foot  of  the  hills  which  separate  the 
table-land  from  the  sea,  the  faint  path  I  had 
been  following  divided.  One  branch  led  down 
a  wadi.  The  other  carried  more  to  the  north 
over  a  high  hill.  I  chose  the  latter.  From  its 
crest  the  mountains  stretched  away  to  the 
north  and  south  in  a  mass  of  reddish-ochre 
wrinkles,  sharp  as  the  surface  of  a  tin  relief 
map.  Northeast,  in  front  of  a  flat-topped  hill, 
a  small  cluster  of  domes  flashed  in  the  sun. 
Was  it  Nebi  Musa,  the  Tomb  of  Moses,  to 
which  the  Hebron  Arabs  had  come  a  month 
earlier?  I  had  read  somewhere  that  when 
Nebi  Musa  comes  in  sight  along  any  road, 
devout  Moslem  travelers  heap  up  small  pyra¬ 
mids  of  rock.  When  I  next  saw  the  white 
domes  between  the  hills  there,  indeed,  were  a 
dozen  or  more  small,  reassuring  piles  of  stone 
by  the  roadside! 

Ten  minutes  later  two  more  paths  came 
straggling  over  the  hill  from  Nebi  Musa  and 
joined  the  one  I  was  traveling.  This  entente 


THE  WILDERNESS 


169 


cordiale  shortly  resulted  in  a  sort  of  Palestine 
avenue  consisting  of  four  or  five  irregular,  in¬ 
termingling  paths  thickly  strewn  with  bowl¬ 
ders.  Then  through  a  gap  in  the  hills  appeared 
another  wide  plain  and  beyond  it,  the  Dead 
Sea. 

Bah r  Lut — the  Sea  of  Lot  the  Arabs  call  it 
— has  no  outlet.  It  receives  daily  from  its  tribu¬ 
taries,  particularly  the  Jordan,  six  and  a  half 
million  tons  of  water.  Yet  the  evaporation  is 
so  tremendous  that  from  year  to  year  there  is 
hardly  a  perceptible  change  in  its  mean  level. 
Rugged,  desolate  mountains  and  alkali  plains 
surround  it.  Great  pits  of  bitumen  he  at  its 
bottom  and  impregnate  the  bitter,  noxious 
water.  To  the  south  is  a  range  of  rock  salt 
hills  fully  seven  miles  long.  The  springs  on  its 
shore  are  sulphurous  and  sulphur  lies  in  layers 
on  its  plains.  Under  sufficient  volcanic  or 
electric  heat,  the  land  would  have  potency  for 
a  terrific  conflagration.  It  is  quite  under¬ 
standable  that  no  traces  have  been  found  of 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah. 

Along  the  road  a  mile  from  the  shore  I  came 
unexpectedly  upon  a  twenty-foot  stone  basin 
hidden  by  the  surrounding  broom  and  weeds. 
Water  was  brimming  over  its  edge.  It  is  gen- 


170  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


erally  conceded  that  “if  water  looks  good, 
smells  good,  and  tastes  good,  it  probably  is 
good.”  This  water  was  a  little  cloudy  in  ap¬ 
pearance  and  a  little  alkaline  in  taste — but 
there  was  no  unseemly  fragrance  at  all.  One 
point  out  of  three  then,  with  a  good  fighting 
chance  for  the  other  two.  So  I  got  down  like 
the  pleasant,  peaceful  men  whom  Joshua  re¬ 
jected  and  drank  deep. 

And  here  was  the  graveled  shore  of  the 
Dead  Sea.  I  had  traveled  four  hours.  Bae¬ 
deker,  I  remembered,  said  that  it  would  take 
riders  on  horseback  five(!)  so  being  a  little 
ahead  of  time,  I  stopped  long  enough  to  wade 
out  into  the  brine.  Has  anyone  ever  visited 
the  Dead  Sea  without  tasting  it?  As  I  raised 
the  water  to  my  lips,  a  drawing  by  an  Ameri¬ 
can  cartoonist  came  to  my  mind.  It  showed  a 
newly  painted  lamp-post  labeled  “Wet  Paint” 
and  a  long  queue  of  people — messenger  boys, 
bank  presidents,  stenographers,  chauffeurs, 
babies,  tramps.  Phi  Beta  Kappas — all  lined 
up  with  their  fingers  in  the  air  waiting  to  see 
whether  the  paint  was  really  wet. 

There  has  been  a  longer  line  than  that  at 
the  Dead  Sea. 

The  taste  is  much  as  it  has  been  described  by 


THE  WILDERNESS 


171 


Josephus  and  all  the  rest,  with  this  exception 
— that  it  cannot  be  described  at  all.  In  spite 
of  the  excellent  descriptions  you  may  have 
read,  you  will  put  a  little  of  the  water  into 
your  mouth  and  say,  “Oh,  yes — rather  like  the 
Atlantic — perhaps  a  little  stronger,”  and  just 
at  that  moment  it  will  slide  around  under  your 
tongue,  and  your  eyes  will  open  wide  at  the 
astonishing  sting  of  it.  But  that  is  not  strange 
after  all.  The  water  of  Bahr  Lut  is  more  than 
one  fourth  mineral . 


4 

The  sun  had  been  hot  on  the  hills  at  five- 
thirty.  It  was  now  eight — and  twelve  hun¬ 
dred  feet  below  sea  level.  Still,  I  felt  no  par¬ 
ticular  desire  to  swim  in  the  Dead  Sea.  There 
was  another  objective  ahead.  A  flat  plain 
splotched  with  alkali  rolled  away  to  the  north, 
with  chalk  foothills  and  red  mountains  in  the 
distance.  Two  roads  ran  across  the  plain,  one 
northeast  and  one  northwest.  I  took  the 
northeast  road.  At  the  end  of  that  road,  I 
hoped,  was  the  Jordan  and  a  swim. 

In  Bethlehem,  time  and  time  again,  the 
music  of  “Stille  Nacht,  heilige  Nacht ”  had 
come  to  me.  But  now,  instead  of  being  in  a 


172  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


similar  mood,  I  found  myself  merrily  keeping 
time  to 

“The  animals  come  by  two  and  two, 

One  wide  river  to  cross.  .  .  .” 

A  little  water  chinked  a  pleasant  accompani¬ 
ment  in  the  bottom  of  the  clay  water  bottle. 
If  there  had  been  a  little  more  water,  it  would 
perhaps  have  chinked  a  little  more  pleasantly, 
for  I  had  not  filled  it  at  the  alkali  spring. 
There  was  no  use  poisoning  the  bottle  until  I 
was  confident  that  I  had  not  poisoned  myself. 
At  last,  beyond  a  tangle  of  tamarisks  and  wil¬ 
lows,  appeared  the  Jordan;  and  at  that  mo¬ 
ment  I  received  a  shock. 

The  Jordan,  the  Great  Defender,  the  “one, 
wide  river,”  was  no  wider  than  a  mill-stream! 
The  farther  bank  was  literally  only  a  stone’s 
throw  away.  The  river  twisted  along  the  plain 
in  intricate  curves  hidden  for  the  most  part  in 
dense  underbrush.  Its  banks  were  lined  with 
broken  roots  and  canes  and  willow  branches 
caught  there  for  a  while  on  their  journey  to 
the  Dead  Sea. 

A  black  boy  in  turban  and  mishla  and  a 
white  dog  were  watching  some  goats  at  a  place 
where  the  bank  had  been  cleared  for  pilgrims. 


THE  WILDERNESS 


173 


The  dog  was  surly  and  approached  showing  a 
full  quota  of  glistening  teeth,  but  he  stopped 
to  listen  with  prophetic  ear  to  the  whistle  of 
my  stick;  and  after  weighing  matters  with 
care,  he  grudgingly  retreated,  pretending 
that  it  was  only  in  obedience  to  a  man’s  voice 
from  the  opposite  bank. 

5 

With  one  eye  on  the  dog,  I  doffed  my  clothes 
and  went  into  the  Jordan,  carrying  a  two-pias¬ 
tre  piece  for  the  unseen  owner  of  the  voice  on 
the  farther  shore.  Perhaps  if  the  current  were 
strong,  I  might  want  to  rest  there  for  a  while. 
The  dweller  on  the  opposite  bank  was  a  stocky, 
long-mustached  man  of  Balkan  type.  He 
welcomed  me  in  an  unknown  tongue,  accepted 
the  coin  only  on  protest,  and  immediately  be¬ 
gan  to  prepare  coffee.  I  looked  around.  It 
was  as  though  I  had  suddenly  entered  the 
menage  of  Robinson  Crusoe.  My  host’s  boat 
containing  a  heavy  rifle  and  a  bandolier  of 
cartridges  lay  moored  to  the  bank.  The  river 
swept  about  in  a  loop,  giving  the  half  acre  of 
ground  he  occupied  the  appearance  of  a  small, 
wooded  island.  His  chairs,  tables  and  benches 
had  all  been  cut  from  the  materials  at  hand. 


174  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


The  stove,  about  which  a  dog  and  two  cats 
wrere  playing,  was  built  of  stones.  Under  the 
shelter  of  osier  mats  a  rustic  table  overlooked 
the  river,  while  above  it,  like  a  great  bird’s 
nest  up  among  the  trees,  was  his  house.  Its 
floor  of  logs  (with  turf  between  to  give  a  flat 
upper  surface)  rested  on  the  forked  trunks  of 
growing  trees,  some  twelve  feet  above  the 
ground.  And  the  house  itself,  which  was 
made  of  intertwined  twigs  and  clay,  stood 
half -hidden  among  the  branches,  while  a  shel¬ 
ter  of  reeds  over  it  doubtless  kept  out  the  rain. 
The  original  Robinson  would  heartily  have  ap¬ 
proved  of  the  means  of  entrance  and  egress. 
One  simply  went  up  a  ladder  and  (if  neces¬ 
sary)  pulled  it  up  after  him.  Such  pots  and 
pans  as  hung  in  the  shed  below  might  very 
well  have  been  foraged  from  a  nearby  wreck. 
And  the  name  of  the  black  boy  with  the  goats 
was — unfortunately — not  Friday  but  Abra- 
him. 

A  huge  slice  of  bread,  buttered  on  both  sides 
and  sprinkled  with  sugar,  accompanied  the 
coffee.  My  provider  and  I  had  no  common 
language,  but  I  gathered  that  he  was  a  Greek 
from  the  island  of  Crete — Craytah ,  he  called 
it — and  that  he  was  stationed  there  to  protect 


THE  WILDERNESS 


175 


pilgrims  who  came  to  the  place  of  baptism 
against  the  Arabs  east  of  the  river.  When  I 
said  that  I  was  an  American,  he  shook  hands 
with  himself  quite  energetically  and  said, 
“Amerika-Grek!  Bona  bona!”  thereby  im¬ 
plying  that  the  diplomatic  relations  of  the  two 
countries  were  for  the  moment  at  par. 

Presently  I  went  to  the  other  bank  and 
returned  with  some  cigarettes,  which  he  ac¬ 
cepted  with  pleasure;  and  later  I  brought  the 
earthenware  bottle  to  be  supplied  from  his 
petroleum  tin.  There  are  many  stories  of  the 
river’s  dangerous  current  at  the  place  of  the 
pilgrims,  and  of  dragomans  who  will  permit 
their  patrons  to  bathe  only  when  fastened  to 
the  end  of  a  line  which  will  by  no  means  allow 
them  to  cross.  But  for  any  one  who  is  brazen 
enough  to  say  that  he  can  swim  I  do  not  think 
that  the  Jordan  in  May  or  later  is  a  matter 
for  an  Arab  dragoman  and  twenty  feet  of 
rope. 


CHAPTER  XV 


1 

The  word  ma  is  unique.  It  is  the  first 
primitive  syllable  used  by  the  young  of  the 
human  species  to  call  their  mother,  and  it  is 
used  for  that  purpose  almost  everywhere.  In 
Hendrik  Van  Loon’s  delightful  history  of 
mankind  there  is  a  chart  which  shows  how  the 
Aryan  stem  ma  has  sent  out  its  branches  to 
make  actual  words  for  mother  in  the  various 
Aryan  tongues.  Even  Sanskrit  is  represented 
by  the  word  mata .  But  there  is  one  rather 
significant  exception  to  that  general  rule.  In 
Arabic,  the  language  of  the  desert,  the  word 
ma  does  not  mean  mother.  It  means  water. 

The  very  religion  of  the  desert  is  keyed  to 
that  liquid  note.  During  all  the  days  of  a 
Moslem’s  life,  rite  after  rite  is  performed  be¬ 
side  some  solitary  spring  or  well.  When  he 
dies  it  is  believed  that  the  devils  stand  by  his 
side  with  a  sparkling  jorum  which  he  is  only 
too  eager  to  exchange  for  the  wayfarer’s  soul. 
On  the  final  Day  of  Judgment  the  spiritually 
beautiful  will  rest  in  the  shade  of  Allah’s 

176 


THE  WILDERNESS 


177 


throne,  while  the  damned  will  suffer  terribly 
from  the  heat  of  the  approaching  sun. 

1  defy  any  man  to  walk  across  the  plain 
from  the  Jordan  to  Jericho  at  midday  without 
having  a  better  understanding  of  the  religion 
of  Mohammed.  In  comparison  with  a  self-re¬ 
specting  desert,  that  plain  would  hardly  be 
visible,  but  for  demonstration  purposes  it  is 
quite  large  enough.  Even  the  desert  people 
themselves  were  not  immune  to  its  terrific  heat. 
The  faces  of  one  or  two  Arabs  I  passed  were 
wrinkled  into  grinning,  slit-eyed  masks.  The 
heat  burned  up  through  my  soles  and  down 
through  my  helmet  and  sideways  by  refraction 
and  radiation  through  my  clothes.  Gradually 
my  eyes  became  no  longer  eyes  but  smolder¬ 
ing  coals.  I  poured  water  on  my  head,  as  Don 
Marquis  once  did.  That  made  me  think  of  a 
confrere  of  Don  Marquis  who  has  very  graphi¬ 
cally  described  a  torrid  night  on  a  New  York- 
Phiiadelphia  Express.  I  too  had  traveled  by 
night  from  New  York  to  Philadelphia.  But 
now  I  thought  of  such  nights  as  that  with  the 
longing  which  a  strictly  fresh  halibut,  frying 
in  a  New  York  grill,  must  feel  when  he  looks 
back  at  his  long  cool  months  of  storage  under 
the  Brooklyn  Bridge.  Two,  three,  four  miles 


178  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


went  by.  I  decoyed  myself  onward  by  think¬ 
ing  about  the  history  of  the  region  through 
which  I  was  passing: 

Time  was  when  the  plain  of  Jericho  was  a 
Paradise.  It  abounded  in  palms,  balsams, 
and  great  orchards.  Subtropical  foliage  cov¬ 
ered  the  outlying  country  estates,  which  were 
irrigated  by  a  splendid  system  of  aqueducts 
from  the  western  hills.  When  Mark  Antony, 
after  leaving  Cleopatra  for  Octavia,  wished 
again  to  mend  matters  with  the  Egyptian 
queen,  he  gave  her  the  plain  of  Jericho.  But 
if  Jericho  had  been  then  as  it  is  to-day — 
another  mile. 

There  have  been  three  Jerichos — Joshua’s, 
Herod’s,  and  the  present  squalid  village  with 
two  or  three  hotels  and  a  few  lazy-looking  men 
and  women  with  tattooed  faces  standing  about. 
The  ruins  of  the  two  older  cities  are  not  far 
from  the  ruin  which  is  to-day’s.  Some  walls — 
perhaps  of  Joshua’s  time — have  been  exca¬ 
vated,  and  some  fragments  which  are  believed 
to  be  the  remains  of  Herod’s  city  are  to  be 
seen.  West  of  the  Jerichos  rise  the  first  of 
those  parallel  mountain  ranges  which  lie  be¬ 
tween  the  valley  and  the  maritime  plain.  Look¬ 
ing  forward  a  mile  or  two  beyond  the  town,  I 


THE  WILDERNESS 


179 


could  see  the  place  where  the  road  entered  the 
mountains  on  its  way  to  Jerusalem. 

It  wound  a  short  distance  up  into  the  hills 
and  disappeared  among  beetling  crags.  I 
looked  at  my  watch.  It  was  three  in  the  after¬ 
noon.  Then,  very  slowly,  the  walls  of  Jericho 
crept  forward  to  the  place  where  I  stood  grind¬ 
ing  out  an  endless  treadmill  of  fiery  road. 

2 

Two  hours  later,  refreshed  by  a  rest  and 
dinner  in  the  Hotel  Gilgal,  I  started  for  Jeru¬ 
salem.  That  city  lay  sixteen  miles  away.  Fig¬ 
uring  on  a  very  modest  rate  of  speed,  I  hoped 
to  arrive  there  well  before  midnight.  Down 
the  road  toward  Jericho,  in  clouds  of  golden 
dust,  came  the  herds  from  their  mountain  pas¬ 
tures,  followed  singly  or  in  groups  by  the 
fellaliin  driving  their  small  donkeys  before 
them.  Then  a  knot  on  horseback  rode  past 
giving  their  rough  greeting,  and  then  after 
them  ambled  a  number  of  camels  loaded  with 
hay.  The  road  zigzagged  into  the  pass  beside 
a  deep  gorge.  High  along  the  nearer  side  of 
the  gorge  and  conforming  to  its  irregularities 
ran  a  shelflike  channel  of  stone  through  which 
a  swift,  copious  stream  of  water  was  pouring. 


180  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


As  I  went  forward  a  strong  wind  began  to 
blow  down  the  pass,  carrying  with  it  thick 
clouds  of  limestone  dust. 

Presently  around  a  corner  came  a  solitary 
soldier  on  horseback.  As  we  approached  each 
other  he  drew  his  horse  over  to  my  side  of  the 
road. 

“Where  you  go?” 

“To  Jerusalem.” 

“Jerusalem?  Come  back  Jericho.  Night 
time,  mountains  no  good!” 

“I  wish  to  get  to  Jerusalem  just  as  soon  as 
possible,”  I  said. 

“No  good.  Beduins  in  mountains.  Make 
like  this — .”  He  made  a  quick,  graphic  motion 
of  cutting  his  throat. 

“Not  so  bad  as  that,”  I  said,  laughing  in  a 
bold,  fearless  manner,  like  one  of  J.  Farnol’s 
heroes.  But  when  I  went  on,  he  shook  his  head 
mournfully,  as  though  to  say,  “Yallah,  how  sad 
to  think  that  this  courageous  gentleman  will 
shortly  be  lying  in  one  of  the  desolate  wadies , 
with  the  hyenas  cracking  his  marrow-bones!” 
Then  he  turned  his  horse  and  went  slowly 
down  the  pass. 

To  be  quite  frank,  the  interview  had  not 
added  to  the  native  gayety  of  the  occasion.  It 


THE  WILDERNESS 


181 


was  on  this  road  that  a  benevolent  Samaritan 
had  once  picked  up  a  badly  battered  traveler 
who  had  fallen  among  thieves,  and  the  reputa¬ 
tion  of  the  place  is  no  more  savory  now  than  it 
was  then.  Resides,  in  the  next  mile,  I  noticed 
no  less  than  three  empty  cartridge  shells  lying 
in  the  dust.  They  were  not  the  sort  of  car¬ 
tridges  one  uses  in  duck  hunting. 

Then  the  wind  began  in  earnest,  hurling 
white  clouds  of  dust  down  the  pass  and  obliter¬ 
ating  everything  for  moments  at  a  time.  Be¬ 
tween  two  dust  clouds  I  looked  up  the  road 
ahead.  There,  at  a  curve  two  hundred  paces 
away,  sitting  immovable  on  their  horses,  were 
three  armed  Beduins.  Their  rifles  lay  ready 
across  their  saddles.  They  had  chosen  a  posi¬ 
tion  where,  except  for  an  occasional  angle,  they 
could  see  the  road  for  miles  on  either  side.  As 
I  looked,  one  dismounted  and  stood  waiting 
beside  his  horse.  They  were  watching  me  in¬ 
tently. 

The  road  wound  between  some  great  rocks, 
so  that  I  was  out  of  sight  for  perhaps  a  min¬ 
ute.  I  looked  about.  A  sheep  path  led 
straight  to  the  summit  of  a  high  hill.  There 
was  the  merest  chance  that  from  its  crest  I 
might  be  seen  by  the  last  guard  who  was  by 


182  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


that  time  far  down  the  pass  toward  Jericho.  .  . 
No!  I  had  started  the  thing,  and  I  would 
finish  it.  This  was  the  very  situation  that  my 
two  old  monks  and  I  had  had  such  a  good  time 
about  at  the  monastery!  ‘‘They  will  take  your 
money,  your  shoes,  your  clothes.”  Yes  indeed; 
very  funny.  But  some  how  or  other,  just  now, 
not  so  funny! 

Then  I  marched  my  legs  up  the  pass. 
Beduins .  There  was  no  doubt  about  it!  Two 
wore  the  Arab  headdress — the  haffiyeh — held 
on  by  the  customary  horsehair  rings,  beneath 
which  appeared  gaunt,  powerful  faces  with 
drooping  mustaches  and  keen,  hard  eyes.  The 
third  wore  a  torn  jersey  and  the  round  skull¬ 
cap  of  the  fellahin .  I  noted  that  no  two  of 
their  saddles  were  alike.  I  noted  that  their 
costumes  were  all  different.  I  noted — 

“Where  are  you  going?”  This  in  Arabic — 
but  I  understood  it  clearly  enough. 

“To  Jerusalem,”  I  said. 

“La/”  they  replied. 

“Must  go  to  J erusalem  ”  I  announced,  with 
emphasis. 

“La/”  they  answered,  grimly. 

And  just  then,  on  the  collar  of  the  foremost, 
I  saw  a  brass  badge  bearing  the  number  145. 


THE  WILDERNESS 


183 


“Police?”  I  hazarded  in  a  wild,  improbable 
guess. 

“Police”  they  answered,  promptly. 

3 

Perhaps  I  should  have  been  annoyed  at 
them  for  interrupting  my  journey.  I  do  not 
mind  saying  that  I  was  not.  Well,  it  had 
been  a  good  thrill.  I  prepared  to  say  good 
night  and  be  on  my  way. 

“La!”  They  got  in  front  of  me  and  kept 
making  remarks  about  clifti .  Somehow  they 
conveyed  the  information  that  I  could  not  go 
on  to  Jerusalem  because  the  clifti  were  very 
dangerous.  Since  cavey  meant  cave  at  Mar 
Saba,  I  inferred  that  clifti  meant  cliff  on  the 
Jericho  road.  So  I  took  out  my  pocket  flash¬ 
light  and  showed  them  that  there  was  little  or 
no  danger  of  my  falling  off  of  the  highway. 
However,  they  appeared  to  be  far  from  con¬ 
vinced  and  made  it  apparent  by  abrupt  ges¬ 
tures  that  I  was  to  accompany  them.  The  fel¬ 
low  in  the  skullcap  remounted  and  rode  a  few 
yards  ahead;  the  others  dropped  behind;  and 
in  this  formation,  we  traveled  up  the  road. 

At  the  highest  point  of  the  pass,  the  way 
ran  over  a  great,  wind-swept  hill.  Here  my 


184  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


captors  motioned  me  to  turn  to  the  right.  For 
a  hundred  yards  we  struggled  up  the  rocky 
hillside.  On  its  crest  stood  two  tents,  strain¬ 
ing  at  their  guy-ropes  as  though  they  would 
be  off  at  any  minute.  Two  dogs,  savage  as 
small  lions,  bristled  at  me  and  sent  their 
clamor  down  the  wind.  Then  the  nearest  tent 
opened,  and  an  Arab  sergeant  of  mounted 
police  came  out,  followed  by  two  or  three  pri¬ 
vates  in  uniform.  One  of  the  latter  spoke  the 
fewest  words  of  English  that  it  is  possible  to 
imagine. 

“ Where  kam?”  he  asked.  In  the  lee  of  the 
tent,  I  made  a  rough  map  of  my  journey — 
Mar  Saba,  the  Dead  Sea,  the  Jordan,  Jericho, 
and  showed  them  by  my  watch  when  I  had 
started. 

“Engleesi?”  they  asked. 

“Americani,”  I  said,  upon  which  they 
looked  at  each  other  and  grunted  “Americani” 
very  significantly  a  few  times  in  a  tone  which 
clearly  implied  that  almost  anything  peculiar 
might  be  expected.  We  went  into  the  tent  and 
sat  down.  I  told  them  by  pantomime  about 
the  guard  who  lived  in  a  tree  across  the  Jordan, 
whereupon  they  nodded  vociferously  and  said, 
“ Rumi rumi!”  which  means,  in  Arabic,  a 


THE  WILDERNESS 


185 


Greek.  Cigarettes  were  handed  around.  We 
were  getting  on  excellently.  I  opened  my 
“Arabic  Self-taught”  and  asked  in  a  genial 
manner,  “Who  is  the  proprietor  of  this  hotel?” 
Unfortunately,  they  thought  that  I  meant  it 
literally  and  went  through  the  kindly  though 
terrific  process  of  explaining  that  it  was  not  a 
hotel  but  a  police  outpost! 

“Mangeria!”  Beside  the  candle  in  the  mid¬ 
dle  of  the  table  they  placed  a  great  bowl  of 
smoking  rice  and  beside  it  a  bowl  of  stew  and 
a  pile  of  native  bread.  With  riotous  hospital¬ 
ity  they  made  place  for  me,  thrusting  a  thin 
loaf  of  bread  into  one  hand  and  showing  me 
how  to  roll  a  ball  of  rice  with  the  other.  I  had 
dined  very  well  at  Jericho;  but,  under  the  cir¬ 
cumstances,  I  accepted  their  bounty  as  well  as 
I  could,  in  the  meantime  devoting  myself  to  the 
word  clifti.  Soon  it  was  conveyed  on  our  frag¬ 
ile  wire  of  communication  that  a  clifti  is  not  a 
cliff  but  a  robber !  In  my  enthusiasm  at  finally 
getting  the  meaning,  !  said,  “Oh!  A  Beduin!” 
— a  remark  which  was  followed  by  a  rather 
painful  silence,  all  the  gentlemen  present  ex¬ 
cepting  myself  being  Beduins. 

In  “Arabic  Self-taught55  there  were  several 
pages  under  the  heading  “Meals.”  Probably 


186  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


there  would  be  some  pleasant  generalities 
there.  No  such  luck,  however.  The  list 
grew  more  hopeless  as  I  read.  Please  pass 
the  tea  and  cakes .  .  .  .  May  I  offer  you  some 
fish?  .  .  .  Will  you  pass  the  mustard?  .  .  . 
Show  me  the  wine  list.  ...  Is  this  water  fil¬ 
tered? 

We  talked  about  localities.  Four  of  them, 
I  found,  came  from  Hebron.  Then  conversa¬ 
tion  lagged.  When  coffee  was  finished,  I  fol¬ 
lowed  the  sergeant — haj,  they  called  him — to 
the  other  tent. 


4 

The  bed,  the  very  best  the  “hotel”  afforded, 
was  a  slightly  raised  mound  covered  with  a 
blanket.  It  seemed  to  be  composed  of  horse 
equipment — bits,  neck  straps,  spurs,  saddles, 
boots,  curb-chains,  and  stirrups.  The  haj , 
after  designating  it  as  mine,  took  out  a  hand¬ 
ful  of  dry  Arabian  tobacco,  poured  water  on 
it,  kneaded  it  together,  and  packed  it  into  his 
hubble-bubble.  After  putting  a  hot  coal  on 
top  of  it,  he  sat  quietly  smoking  while  the  in¬ 
terpreter  told  me  with  his  hands,  feet,  and 
torso  that  American  moving  pictures  were  very 
good.  Again  the  conversation  waned.  I  re- 


THE  WILDERNESS 


187 


moved  my  shoes  and  went  to  bed.  Tired  as  I 
was,  that  mound  of  saddles  and  stirrups  would 
have  seemed  a  king’s  couch — but  alas,  it  was 
already  occupied.  Fleas !  Swift,  indefatigable, 
malignant — the  only  denizens  of  the  country 
who  have  never  come  under  the  sway  of  the 
invader.  Did  the  Crusaders  have — this?  For 
a  moment  I  forgot  my  own  sorrows  in  theirs.  If 
half  a  dozen  resolute  Mohammedan  fleas  ever 
got  inside  their  Christian  armor  .  .  .  !  And 
then  I  forgot  their  sorrows  in  mine. 

This  is  how  bad  they  were:  Toward  the 
small  hours  of  the  morning  I  rose  and  put  on 
my  shoes  again,  so  that  at  least  one  section  of 
punctured  epidermis  should  be  covered  by  a 
bulwark  of  leather. 

At  daybreak  I  was  awakened  from  fitful 
slumber  by  the  voice  of  the  interpreter,  who 
lay  near  me,  sleepily  requesting  the  judgment 
of  Allah  on  a  little  black  goat  that  was  nib¬ 
bling  his  mustache.  The  haj  had  already 
risen  and  was  kneeling  in  the  center  of  the 
tent,  facing  Mecca  and  washing  in  clear  water 
from  the  spout  of  an  earthen  jar.  As  he 
washed,  he  mumbled  swift  prayers  in  a  husky, 
guttural  voice. 

I  rose  on  creaking  bones,  which  in  turn 


188  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


were  clothed  in  the  sinews  of  an  aged  man ;  but 
after  I  had  washed,  and  been  warmed  by  the 
sun,  youth  rekindled  sufficiently  to  permit  me 
to  intimate  to  the  haj  that  I  was  ready  to  de¬ 
part.  He  made  suggestions  about  mangeria 
again,  but  I  thanked  him  quickly  and  kindly, 
and  went  down  the  road  to  J erusalem  with  the 
sun  at  my  back. 


THE  TOWN 


CHAPTER  XVI 


1 

Hilway  Audeh  was  standing  inside  the 
Jaffa  Gate,  holding  a  basket  of  hand-made 
lace  which  she  offered  to  passers  by.  She  was 
a  woman  of  about  forty,  not  of  the  Palestine 
type  so  much  as  the  Syrian — with  dark  hair 
sweeping  down  either  side  of  her  forehead, 
level  brows,  tranquil  eyes,  and  a  slightly  aqui¬ 
line  nose.  The  face  was  a  little  worn-looking. 
The  eyes  pleaded  silently.  Once  upon  a  time, 
on  a  journey  to  China,  I  had  bought  a  rather 
large  number  of  lace  affairs;  but  on  return¬ 
ing  home  I  found  that  no  honor  had  accrued 
thereby.  I  knew  of  my  own  knowledge  that 
the  design  and  workmanship  were  good.  But 
something  was  wrong.  “Oh,  yes,  it  is  beautiful 
hand-made  lace,”  they  said.  “Beautiful.  .  .” 
At  last,  some  one  more  compassionate  than  the 
rest  told  me  that  just  that  sort  of  thing  had 
not  been  worn  for  seven  or  eight  years.  “But 
it  is  beautifully  made  .  .  .”  So  I  passed  Hil¬ 
way  Audeh  by. 

But  coming  into  the  hotel  a  day  or  two 
later,  I  found  her  talking  to  Saliba  Abrahim 

191 


192  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


Said.  They  were  old  friends.  Then,  “Will 
you  not  buy  a  little  lace?”  Well. . .  In  the 
buying,  it  transpired  that  Hilway,  a  widow 
with  several  children,  lived  in  Nazareth  and 
that  she  expected  to  return  to  Galilee  the  next 
day.  That  interested  me,  for  I  too  intended 
to  go  to  Nazareth  very  soon.  I  inquired  where 
a  room  could  be  found. 

“Why  do  you  not  come  to  my  house?”  she 
asked,  to  my  surprise.  It  was  arranged.  A 
few  days  later  I  sent  off  a  letter  to  her,  and 
the  following  morning  I  left  for  Nazareth. 

2 

The  automobile  would  hardly  have  been 
recognized  as  one  of  the  usual  variety.  Its  tin 
sides  were  terribly  battered.  Its  fenders  no 
longer  fended.  The  upholstery  indeed  had 
completely  disappeared.  In  place  of  the  lat¬ 
ter,  two  small  Turkish  rugs  hung  over  the 
back  seat.  But  the  tires  were  brand  new ;  and 
when  the  driver  turned  his  engine  over,  it  an¬ 
swered  at  once  with  a  quick  chug-chug  and 
then  with  a  steady,  powerful  whirr  from  its 
four  efficient  cylinders.  “Good  engine,”  I 
said,  taking  a  chance  on  its  owner’s  English. 

“Yes,”  he  answered,  “it  runs  all  right . 


^he  Citadel  or  Tower  of  David  is  a  great  mass  of  mediaeval  ma¬ 
sonry  beside  the  Jaffa  Gate.  It  is  still  separated  from  its  watch  tower 
by  a  deep  moat.  At  night  its  ancient  walls  rise  up  starkly — lit  by 
the  electric  arc-light  of  the  neighboring  gendarmerie. 


■ 


THE  TOWN 


193 


When  something  happens  to  it,  I  don’t  take 
it  somewhere— I  fix  it  myself.” 

There  were  two  other  passengers  for  the 
north,  a  venerable,  white-whiskered  Jew  next 
to  the  driver  and  a  young  Jewish  lady  sepa¬ 
rated  from  myself  by  a  large  trunk  covered 
with  flowered  wall-paper.  The  patriarch 
seemed  to  be  using  that  particular  trip  of  that 
particular  Ford  to  move  his  home.  Two 
wicker  chairs,  much  the  worse  for  wear,  rose 
abaft  the  forward  mudguards,  functioning 
like  the  whiskers  of  a  cat.  If  they  could  go 
through  an  opening  without  being  scraped  off, 
whatever  was  behind  them  could  follow  with¬ 
out  any  trouble  at  all.  Large  baskets  and 
boxes  filled  every  available  foot  of  the  ton¬ 
neau;  mops,  brooms,  and  some  of  the  lighter 
garden  implements  were  strapped  along  the 
top.  Its  appearance  recalled  the  Mayflower . 
The  driver  and  the  venerable  one  beside  him 
kept  up  a  steady  flow  of  conversation  in 
Arabic.  The  young  lady  at  the  other  side  of 
the  paper-covered  trunk  spoke  only  Arabic 
and  Hebrew.  I  gave  my  attention  to  the  land¬ 
scape. 

From  the  beginning  of  these  notes,  I  have 
tried  as  much  as  possible  to  avoid  saying,  “This 


194  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


place  is  so-and-so,”  and  “Here,  such-and-such 
an  event  happened.”  And  yet — that  hill  over 
there  is  certainly  Gerizim,  the  sacred  mountain 
of  Abraham  and  Joseph  and  Jacob  and 
Joshua.  And  all  the  district  about  us  is 
called  Samaria  after  a  city  of  that  name;  and 
here,  in  a  little  church  to  the  right  of  the  road, 
is  a  well  where  a  poor  woman  of  Samaria  once 
saw  life  in  an  entirely  new  way  through  talk¬ 
ing  a  little  while  with  a  Stranger  from  Naza¬ 
reth. 

As  we  rested  at  Nablus,  the  ancient  She- 
chem,  a  song  came  from  the  old  Turkish  bar¬ 
racks  across  the  road,  with  a  strange,  far-away 
lilt  which  made  even  the  natives  stand  and  lis¬ 
ten.  The  British  have  found  the  citizens  of 
Shechem  a  little  restive.  Indian  lance  cavalry 
— Sikhs — occupy  the  barracks,  and  the  song 
was  not  of  Galilee  but  of  the  Punjab.  When¬ 
ever  we  stopped,  the  driver  stopped  his 
engine  too,  in  order,  I  felt  sure,  to  hear 
its  quick,  pleasant  response  at  the  first 
jerk  of  the  crank.  As  he  climbed  in  over  the 
household  property  he  would  cast  a  shy,  sol¬ 
emn  glance  at  me,  and  I  would  nod  in  appre¬ 
ciation,  whereupon  he  would  smile  delightedly. 
Ours  was  a  deep  and  secret  freemasonry.  He 


THE  TOWN 


195 


had  a  well-tuned  engine,  and  he  knew  that  I 
knew  he  had  “ tuned  it  up”  himself. 

I  looked  at  his  coat.  As  far  as  color  went, 
it  might  have  been  a  British  or  American  or 
Serbian  uniform,  or  even  one  from  the  army 
of  King  Feisal  in  Mesopotamia.  But  the  cut 
of  it  seemed  to  be  that  of  the  “regular  issue 
O.  D.  blouse”  of  the  Americans.  It  resembled 
the  regular  issue  blouse  even  more  in  that  it 
did  not  fit  him  quite.  And  when  he  turned 
around  there  were  the  familiar  bronze  buttons 
bearing  the  eagles  with  the  stars  above  them. 

“That  coat?”  he  replied  to  my  question. 
“That’s  from  my  ole  country!  My  brother  sent 
it  to  me.  He  was  in  France  in  the  war.  My¬ 
self,  I  lived  near  Detroit  ten  years.”  (Detroit! 
No  wonder  the  engine  sang!) 

Then  the  town  of  Samaria  went  by,  and  the 
village  of  Jeneen  (the  Engannin  of  Joshua) 
with  a  stream  of  fresh  water  running  beside  it. 
“Engannin”  means  “the  garden’s  spring,” 
said  my  guide  book.  “Some  authorities  state 
that  because  of  its  excellent  water  supply  this 
is  also  Beth-gannin,  meaning  ‘garden  house,’ 
and  that  it  was  by  this  road  that  Ahaziah  came 
fleeing  from  Jehu,  the  son  of  Jehoshaphat. 
Other  authorities  state — ” 


196  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


Ah  yes — and  I  thought,  “There  they  go, 
stating  and  stating  that  it  was  ‘by  this  road ’ — 
not  that  it  was  possibly  or  probably  by  this 
road,  but  that  it  was  by  this  road”  Others  are 
just  as  positive  that  it  was  not  by  this  road. 
And  the  whole  thing  happened  nearly  three 
thousand  years  ago  in  the  midst  of  a  muddy 
plain!  Which  is  right?  Certainly  I  do  not 
know.  But  sometimes,  the  world  seems  to  be 
nothing  but  a  mass  of  man-made  statements , 
with  truth  fighting  for  breath  at  the  bottom 
of  the  heap. 

And  now  we  were  passing  Jezreel,  where 
the  watchman  in  the  tower  saw  Jehu  driving 
furiously.  But  as  I  looked  forward  toward 
the  hills  ahead  I  realized  that  I  was  not  par¬ 
ticularly  moved  by  knowing  where  Jehu  may 
have  driven  or  who  may  have  watched  him.  Or 
where  Joab  and  Abishai  avenged  themselves 
for  the  death  of  Asahel.  Sullen,  savage  blood- 
feuds  these,  dominated  by  a  god  before  whom 
men  bowed  down  like  cravens.  One  could  al¬ 
most  hear  the  thunder  of  the  tom-toms  and 
see  the  smoke  curling  up  from  the  altars  of  a 
deity  so  primitive  that  he  demanded  a  sacrifice 
of  blood. 

Then  all  these  thoughts  passed  by  like  the 


THE  TOWN 


197 


shadows  of  small  clouds  before  the  sun.  On  a 
curved  hollow  of  the  hillside  ahead  of  us  lay  a 
white-walled  cheerful-looking  town.  The 
Arabs  call  that  town  En-Nazira. 

But  for  a  long  time,  in  the  West,  we  have 
called  it  Nazareth. 


3 

Hilway  Audeh’s  house  lay  halfway  up  the 
hill  in  a  network  of  cactus  hedges,  small 
houses  and  fruit  trees.  A  lane  below  it  ran 
parallel  with  the  hillside.  In  a  diminutive 
garden  with  a  retaining  wall  to  make  it  level  a 
mish-mish  tree  was  in  bloom,  and  bees  from  a 
cylindrical  clay  hive  were  busy  among  the 
flowers.  Hilway  saw  me  leave  the  automobile 
at  Mary’s  Well  and  came  hurrying  down  the 
hill  to  meet  me.  She  was  a  little  flurried,  for 
she  had  not  received  my  letter.  She  hoped  I 
would  excuse  the  fact  that  the  house  was  not 
straightened  up. 

Her  oldest  daughter,  a  girl  of  eighteen,  met 
us  at  the  door.  The  front  room  was  not  in 
order;  so,  after  putting  the  baggage  inside, 
I  went  out  and  looked  at  the  mish-mish  tree  in 
the  little  yard  and  at  the  bees  clustering  by  hun¬ 
dreds  on  the  clay  cylinders  and  at  the  valley 


198  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


and  the  roofs  of  Nazareth  below.  Then  Hil- 
way  called  me  in  and  brought  some  native 
food,  apologizing  all  the  time  that  there  was  no 
European  food  in  the  house.  I  protested  that 
I  liked  the  native  kind;  but  she  said,  “No,  you 
must  feel  just  as  though  this  were  your  home.” 
So  I  ate  the  native  bread  and  cheese  and  a  few 
mish-mish ;  and  then,  when  the  sun’s  heat  had 
lessened,  I  climbed  to  the  open  hilltop  above 
the  town. 


“ONCE,  IN  NAZARETH .  .  ” 


Over  the  slopes  of  Esdraelon 

Down  through  the  lanes  of  Nazareth , 
Dusty  and  hot  and  out  of  breath , 

Ran  Mary's  little  Son . 

“Where  have  you  been ,  my  bonnie  one? 
Where  have  you  wandered  all  day  long , 
Mother  has  missed  your  cheery  song .  . 

“Mother,  I  saw  a  caravan — 

Fifty  camels  and  camel-men. 

Slaves  there  were  and  soldiers  ten — - 
Camped  in  the  shade  when  the  heat  began. 

“The  camels  stood  in  the  cool  of  the  hill , 

But  I  saw  the  slaves  with  bleeding  feet 
Gathering  grass  in  the  midday  heat — 
One  of  them  fell  and  lay  quite  still  " 

“What  did  you  do,  my  little  one?" 

“Mother,  1  ran  as  fast  as  I  could 
Bringing  a  branch  of  olivewood 
To  shade  him  from  the  sun . 

“Mother,  I  bathed  his  tired  brow 

And  three  times  filled  his  empty  cup 
And  smoothed  his  hair  and  helped  him  up 
As  you  have  taught  me  how. 


“Mother,  when  1  grow  up  some  more 
Then  Til  be  king  of  Galilee, 

But  never  a  slave-man  will  you  see — 

•  ••••••• 

Mother — what  are  you  crying  for V3 


CHAPTER  XVII 


1 

Do  you  know — very  probably  you  do — that 
the  Mediterranean  is  plainly  visible  from  the 
hilltop  above  Nazareth?  When  I  climbed  its 
crest  and  faced  the  fresh  breeze  blowing  from 
the  east  and  saw  the  blue  water  flashing  be¬ 
yond  Mount  Carmel,  there  came  i  warm  surge 
of  the  pulses  and  a  quick,  deep  sense  of 
affirmation.  “Of  course!”  I  found  myself  say¬ 
ing.  “I  should  have  known  it!”  In  a  breath  I 
seemed  to  understand  a  thousand  things  which 
I  had  not  comprehended  before.  What  grow¬ 
ing  lad  could  watch  that  distant,  elusive  strip 
of  blue  without  speculating  about  the  world 
which  lay  beyond?  Day  after  day  he  must 
have  climbed  the  curved  crest  of  the  hill  to 
look  at  the  sea.  I  do  not  think  there  is  the 
slightest  doubt  about  that.  Nazareth,  it  is 
true,  has  been  destroyed  not  less  than  three 
times  since  the  Christian  era  began.  The 
houses  are  of  mud  and  soft  rock.  Very  little 
of  the  original  town  could  remain.  But  the 
Virgin’s  Well,  with  its  abundant  stream  of 

201 


202  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


water,  is  the  only  sizable  spring  within  miles. 
The  women  and  girls  still  fill  their  jars  there 
morning  and  night.  It  lies  directly  at  the  foot 
of  the  hill,  and  from  the  top  of  that  hill  one 
sees  twenty  miles  of  the  Mediterranean  coast 
with  the  busy  port  of  Haifa  in  the  distance.  It 
is  as  much  a  part  of  the  world’s  girdle  as  the 
farthest  reaches  of  the  Pacific. 

I  never  climbed  the  hill  but  that  a  strong 
breeze  was  blowing  from  the  Mediterranean; 
and  here,  as  sometimes  in  a  church,  there  came 
to  me  the  wish  to  be  alone.  It  is  difficult  to 
understand  why  this  spot  is  not  covered  with 
the  mightiest  church  in  Christendom.  Or, 
rather,  it  would  be  difficult  to  understand,  if 
one  did  not  know  that  man  has  been  busy  all 
these  years  not  so  much  with  his  Master’s  life 
as  with  his  death.  As  it  is,  there  is  no  cathedral 
in  the  world  like  this  one.  The  great  plain  of 
Esdraelon  is  the  nave,  Mount  Tabor  is  the 
pulpit,  Mount  Hermon,  to  the  northeast,  the 
white-haired  priest.  The  dome  of  the  sky 
rises  overhead,  and  the  sea  is  a  window  of  rich, 
unduplicable  glass.  And  for  music  there  is 
the  wind — the  first  whispered  notes  of  a 
mighty  organ. 

Even  now,  in  places  far  away  from  Galilee 


THE  TOWN 


203 


— and  seemingly  for  no  reason  at  all — the 
memory  of  that  hilltop  comes  rushing  back. 
And  then  for  an  instant  comes  a  sense  of  see¬ 
ing  true.  It  is  as  though  there  came  a  swift, 
broad  view  of  an  astonishing  canvas  that  man 
has  been  painting  through  the  ages.  It  is  so 
vast,  that  canvas,  and  its  values  are  so  breath¬ 
taking  that  we  cannot  make  much  out  of  it  if 
we  look  at  one  place  too  closely.  That  was  my 
trouble  in  the  last  chapter,  when  I  passed 
Jezreel  where  the  watchman  saw  Jehu  driving 
so  furiously.  I  was  looking  too  closely  at  one 
particular  spot. 

Sometimes  the  wider  view  lasts  only  an  in¬ 
stant.  In  that  time  we  must  try  to  see  as  much 
of  the  painting  as  we  can. 

2 

We  are  far  from  being  sure  of  what  took 
place  on  these  hillsides  during  the  first  thirty 
years  of  Christ’s  life.  We  have  come  to  think 
of  that  period  as  passing  with  great  serenity, 
but  that  is  difficult  to  know.  Rome,  at  least, 
was  not  having  an  easy  time  in  the  vicinity. 
Beyond  the  range  of  hills  to  the  north,  the 
Parthians  had  already  defeated  the  legions 
several  times.  Even  in  the  small  province  of 


204  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


Galilee,  thirty  miles  wide  by  forty  long,  there 
had  been  at  least  one  serious  rebellion.  It  took 
two  trained  legions  to  crush  it ;  and,  as  a  result, 
more  than  a  thousand  men  were  crucified. 
Whole  towns  were  taken  into  slavery.  The 
spirit  of  revolt  was  abroad;  men  and  women 
were  searching  for  something.  That  some¬ 
thing  was  spiritual  help.  Democracy  too, 
newly  aroused,  was  aiding  the  search.  ( There 
appears  to  be  an  almost  uncanny  parallelism 
between  local  conditions  then  and  world  condi¬ 
tions  to-day.) 

Two  thousand  years  earlier,  when  Rameses 
II  made  slaves  of  a  group  of  nomadic  tribes 
east  of  the  Delta  and  forced  them  to  make  mud 
bricks,  he  fused  democracy  at  white  heat  into 
the  Semitic  character.  The  Hebrew  race  was 
inoculated  in  its  very  fiber  with  the  cravings 
for  a  freedom  of  spirit,  the  like  of  which 
Greece,  even  at  her  best  period,  probably  did 
not  know.  The  weight  of  legions  has  never 
been  able  to  conquer — and  never  will  be  able 
to  conquer — the  highest  message  of  the 
prophets  of  Israel. 

So — in  the  early  years  of  his  life  at  Naza¬ 
reth,  when  the  land  was  ridden  by  an  ecclesias¬ 
tical  hierarchy  and  by  the  Herods  and  the 


THE  TOWN 


20  5 


mandate  of  Rome — the  spirit  of  the  prophets 
smoldered  in  Palestine  with  a  fierce  and  not 
always  hidden  flame.  From  his  hilltop  he  was 
not  blind  to  these  things.  Galilee  was  the 
very  center  of  the  conflagration.  Here  the  in¬ 
tense  nationalism  of  the  Jews  strove  with  the 
imperialism  of  Rome.  Socially  it  was  to  the 
world  what  the  Bloody  Angle  was  to  the 
Union  in  July,  1863.  It  was  Le  Mares  Farm 
on  the  Paris-Metz  Road  in  June,  1918. 

3 

What  was  actually  to  be  seen  from  that 
hilltop  in  Galilee?  To  the  west,  beyond  the 
low,  crouching  bulk  of  Mount  Carmel,  lay  the 
Mediterranean,  with  the  grain  fleets  of  Egypt 
and  the  Phoenician  merchantmen  from  Tyre 
and  the  mother-city,  Sidon,  plying  up  and 
down  its  coasts.  Eastward  stretched  the 
desert,  the  broad  highway  of  the  caravans — 
slow  pulse  of  the  mysterious  East.  To  the 
north  ran  the  busy  highway  from  Damascus 
to  the  Sea.  Southward  lay  the  great  Roman 
road  from  Acre  to  the  Jordan,  teeming  with 
the  traffic  of  Trans jordania  and  the  Galilee 
basin.  Vast  routes  of  trade  these,  ready  to 
bear  a  message  of  revolt  or  horror  or  hope  to 


206  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


the  ends  of  the  world.  There  had  been  suffi¬ 
cient  messages  of  horror.  .  .  . 

In  the  midst  of  all  this  turmoil  came  the 
voice  of  a  young  seer  by  the  name  of  J ohn,  at 
first  clear  and  strong,  out  of  the  wilderness, 
then  a  little  wearily  as  the  need  for  his  message 
waned  and  the  Herodian  corruptions  drew  too 
near  to  his  vision.  Close  upon  that  followed 
the  sequel — as  Aubrey  Beardsley,  the  English 
artist,  has  so  well  drawn  it — a  terrible,  mis¬ 
shapen  arm  rising  starkly  out  of  a  black  pit, 
bearing  a  salver  on  which  lies  the  prophet’s 
head. 

4 

Then  came  the  Christ. 

r.  iitjiiumjuB»iTmmwTfi  —■  rnjyr**  •*'***' 

The  message  he  brought  was — Deliverance . 
The  freeing  of  man’s  spirit.  The  liberating  of 
the  individual  from  his  bonds.  The  unfetter¬ 
ing  of  the  world’s  slaves. 

_  0 

We  have  by  no  means  allowed  all  those  fet¬ 
ters  to  be  struck  off.  Sometimes  when  we  look 
at  the  nearer  parts  of  the  great  painting,  there 
seem  to  be  more  fetters  than  ever  before.  That, 
I  think,  is  not  seeing  true.  By  all  that  we 
know  of  man  and  his  history,  the  direction  is 
unmistakably  upward.  Man  is  moving  slowly 
and  painfully,  but  he  is  moving  upward  and  on. 


THE  TOWN 


207 


The  hill  above  Nazareth?  We  shall  never 
actually  know  what  it  has  done  for  us.  We 
only  know  that  He  who  had  looked  so  often 
from  its  summit  said,  “Go  ye  into  all  the  world 
.  .  .  ”  The  Jewish  world  stood  aghast.  Then 
he  told  them  to  love  their  neighbors — the  Gen¬ 
tiles  even — as  themselves.  That  was  beyond 
the  pale!  Yet  with  those  poignant  words  that 
seemed  so  utterly  visionary  and  impractical  he 
broke  down  the  old  barriers  and  with  his  vision 
illuminated  the  world’s  vision.  Man’s  uncon¬ 
scious  dream  was  changed  from  a  dream  into 
the  reality  of  a  magnificent,  enheartening 
struggle,  a  struggle  toward  an  ideal  too  high, 
thank  God,  even  for  the  best  of  men  to  reach. 

These  things  would  come  very  clearly  to 
any  man  on  the  hillside  above  N azareth. 


THE  TOILERS 


Strong ,  with  the  strength  of  earth  beneath  their 
tread , 

Slow ,  as  the  marching  stars  they  gaze 
upon — 

Squadrons  of  living  Men  and  living  Dead — 
The  legions  of  eternity  press  on. 

As  one  they  come.  “ And  who  in  yonder  van 
Illumines  all  the  path  that  men  may  see?33 


•  ••••••• 


(T  think  he  is  a  fellow  working-man — 

A  Carpenter ,  they  say,  from  Galilee 33 


CHAPTER  XVIII 


1 

Nazareth  is  not  a  typical  Palestine  town. 
It  is  much  too  clean  for  that ;  almost  as  clean 
as  Bethlehem.  The  exteriors  of  the  houses  are 
white-washed  very  frequently,  and  instead  of 
gutters,  stone-lined  trenches  a  foot  or  two  wide 
and  a  foot  deep  run  down  the  center  of  the 
streets.  Such  a  system  has  its  advantages. 
There  is  only  one  place  for  things  like  cabbage 
leaves  and  vegetable  parings,  and  the  chan¬ 
nels  are  cleaned  daily.  The  dwellings  in  the 
town  proper  are  crowded  close  together  on  the 
convex  face  of  the  hill;  but  on  the  outlying 
slopes,  they  cluster  picturesquely  among  green 
cactus  hedges  and  fig  and  olive  trees. 

There  are  not  many  sites  that  are  known  as 
sacred  in  Nazareth.  A  small  chapel  occupies 
the  traditional  place  of  Joseph’s  workshop. 
Another  contains  a  flat-topped  stone  some  six 
feet  long  which  is  said  to  have  been  used  as  a 
table  by  Christ  and  his  disciples.  There  is  a 
feeling  of  greater  freedom  about  the  Church 
of  the  Annunciation  than  in  the  heavy,  ornate 

209 


210  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


interiors  at  Jerusalem.  It  is  decorated  with 
simple  bands  of  blue  on  a  white  background  of 
flat  surfaces  and  arches,  and  on  its  walls  are 
portraits  of  monks  in  the  familiar  brown  home- 
spun  of  the  Franciscans. 

Along  the  shallow  valley  beyond  the  town 
cactus  hedges  rear  their  spiked  leaves  twelve 
feet  or  more  into  the  hot,  still  air.  In  the  lanes 
between  the  hedges  one  seems  almost  to  be 
treading  a  narrow  path  through  a  cactus  jun¬ 
gle.  Often  huge  plants  are  to  be  seen  grow¬ 
ing  luxuriantly,  with  their  roots  clinging  to 
the  tops  of  low  stone  walls.  To  make  such  a 
defense  it  is  only  necessary  to  lay  cactus 
leaves  upon  the  uppermost  layer  of  stones 
where  they  shortly  take  root  themselves. 

In  the  evenings  when  Hilway  Audeh  came 
home  from  her  work,  she  would  tell  me  about 
recent  events  in  Nazareth.  Its  inhabitants 
were  no  more  through  talking  about  the  Great 
War  than  people  were  in  Liverpool,  or  Dres¬ 
den,  or  Philadelphia.  During  the  occupation 
of  the  town  by  Turkish  troops,  lace-making, 
Hilway  said,  was  ended.  So  she  locked  the 
children  in  the  house  and  went  every  day  to 
the  village  of  Seffurieh,  a  six-mile  walk,  for 
fruit  and  vegetables  which  she  brought  back 


THE  TOWN 


211 


and  sold  to  the  Turkish  troops.  But  later 
that  was  no  longer  possible,  for  the  Germans 
regulated  all  the  food  supplies  in  Galilee. 
Then,  night  and  morning,  she  went  into  the 
hills  and  gathered  large  bundles  of  faggots 
and  weeds  for  fuel.  These  she  sold  for  one 
piastre  (five  cents)  a  bundle.  Frequently 
fever  induced  by  poor  food  overcame  her,  and 
then  she  would  lie  down  in  the  open  fields  and 
sleep  until  she  could  go  on  again. 

Since  the  British  mandate  has  been  in  effect, 
things  have  gone  somewhat  better  for  Hilway. 
Her  oldest  son  is  in  the  gendarmerie.  At  in¬ 
tervals  she  takes  her  lace  to  sell  in  Jerusalem. 

“But  is  there  no  lace  sold  in  Nazareth?”  I 
asked. 

“Not  very  much.  You  know  why?  It  is 
because  the  travelers  come  by  automobile  and 
no  longer  stop  for  more  than  an  hour  at  Naza¬ 
reth.  In  the  days  before  the  war  they  would 
at  least  rest  here  over  night,  and  perhaps  they 
would  buy  some  lace.  But  now  they  stay  only 
for  a  short  time,  and  then  go  quickly  on  to 
Tiberias.” 

2 

A  burial  service  took  place  on  the  afternoon 
of  the  day  before  I  left  the  little  town.  A 


212  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


young  Nazarene  of  eighteen  or  twenty,  on 
gendarme  duty  in  a  neighboring  village,  had 
been  killed  by  a  horse.  He  was  riding  one  of 
the  mounts  which  the  English  had  brought 
with  them — a  powerful,  vicious  stallion  that 
already  had  one  killing  to  his  record.  It  was 
not  known  exactly  what  had  happened,  but  the 
horse  somehow  became  unruly  and  toppled 
over  backward,  crushing  in  the  boy’s  chest. 
The  lad  was  affianced  to  a  girl  of  Nazareth 
and  had  expected  to  come  home  on  leave  the 
day  the  accident  happened. 

The  funeral  procession  approached  the 
small  Greek  church  beside  the  Virgin’s  Well. 
First  came  the  gendarmes  with  arms  reversed, 
then  a  platoon  of  Boy  Scouts  in  uniform — for 
Nazareth  has  a  large  Scout  corps — then  the 
coffin  raised  high  on  many  hands  and  draped 
with  the  British  flag.  Black-clad  women  fol¬ 
lowed,  crooning  a  strange.  Oriental  chant  to 
which  they  marked  time  by  clapping  their 
hands.  The  men,  bearing  lighted  candles,  en¬ 
tered  the  body  of  the  church,  while  the  women 
looked  on  from  the  upper  galleries.  When 
the  droning  service  of  the  Greek  priests  was 
finished,  the  cortege  proceeded  up  the  hill  to 
the  little  cemetery  between  Hilway’s  house 


THE  TOWN 


213 


and  the  road,  where  the  burial  took  place.  It 
was  the  men’s  day.  The  entire  services  were 
conducted  by  men.  But  the  next  day  belonged 
to  the  women.  And  the  next,  and  the  next— 

Following  the  custom  of  the  two  Marys, 
they  came  to  the  grave  before  daybreak,  and, 
seating  themselves  beside  the  newly  made 
mound,  they  sang  their  pathetic,  sorrowing 
words  for  the  dead : 

Tell  the  mother  to  make  her  best  room 
ready.  Let  it  be  clean  and  well-arranged ,  for 
the  bridegroom  will  enter  with  his  bride.  .  .  . 

Prosper  the  new  bridegroom.  May  he  be 
long  of  life  and  dearly  cherish  his  beloved 

Tell  the  mother  to  be  happy  and  joyful ,  be¬ 
cause  her  son  is  coining  to  his  own.  .  .  . 

But  alas ,  alas  .... 

Tell  the  horses  now  to  step  carefully.  Tell 
the  priest  and  those  that  carry  the  coffin  not  to 
hurry ,  for  his  friends  wish  to  salute  him  and  to 
say  good-by  .... 

We  come  to  this  place ,  but  we  cannot  see 
you.  Open  the  grave  a  little  way  and  let  the 


214  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


fresh  mind  come  to  him ;  and  pour  this  scent 
upon  the  bridegroom  s  hair.  .  .  . 

I  plant  this  little  tree  above  your  head  for 
memory.  All  the  days  of  my  life  I  shall  re¬ 
member.  .  .  . 


•  ••••••• 


3 

At  ten  a.  m.,  a  three-seated  wagon  started 
up  the  hill  beyond  the  town.  An  Arab  passen¬ 
ger  sat  beside  the  Arab  driver.  An  Arab  fam¬ 
ily  consisting  of  a  man,  his  wife,  and  small  boy 
occupied  the  back  seat.  I  had  the  place  be¬ 
tween.  The  wagon  was  quite  creditable — ex¬ 
cept  for  one  of  its  brakes  which  dropped  off 
as  we  went  down  the  other  side  of  the  hill 
beyond  Nazareth  toward  the  little  village  of 
Kafr  Kenna.  Kafr  Kenna  is  probably  the 
site  of  Cana  of  Galilee  where,  the  Bible  relates, 
the  water  was  turned  into  wine  for  the  wedding 
feast. 

Beside  the  village  spring  half  a  dozen  shep¬ 
herds  were  making  excellent  music,  one 
after  another  on  a  metal  flute.  (At  one  time 
I  used  to  play  the  flute  myself — Boehm  sys¬ 
tem,  grenadilla  wood,  with  the  closed  G-sharp 


THE  TOWN 


215 


key.  But  this  flute  was  simply  a  piece  of  iron 
pipe,  open  at  both  ends,  with  five  finger  holes 
bored  in  it.)  While  repairs  were  being  made 
on  the  wagon,  I  stopped  near  by  and  listened 
to  them.  Then,  after  their  custom,  they  of¬ 
fered  the  flute  to  me,  so  I  accepted  it  and  pre¬ 
pared  in  a  dignified  manner  to  play.  I  knew, 
of  course,  that  I  could  play  it.  One  did  not 
hope  to  execute  the  V alse  Chromatique  on  five 
finger  holes;  but  at  least  one  could  make  a 
clear,  vibrant,  civilized  note  for  these  old-time 
people. 

I  tried  it  for  three  minutes.  I  twisted  my 
face  into  all  the  grimaces  of  the  accomplished 
flautist.  In  vain  I  made  my  upper  lip  Hiber¬ 
nian,  almost  prehensile.  Not  a  single  peep 
or  toot!  Not  even  a  shriek.  Only  air.  I  re¬ 
linquished  the  flute  with  dignity  and  strolled 
back  to  the  carriage.  Ah  well  .  .  .  Lackaday 
and  odds  bodkins  .  .  .  What-ho  and  gazooks, 
even  .  .  .  The  flutes  of  man  are  devious ! 

4 

Beyond  Kafr  Kenna  the  hills  opened 
upon  a  plain  covered  with  extensive  wheat 
fields  on  which  hundreds  of  Beduin  families 
were  cutting  their  grain.  Camels  with  great 


216  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


bales  of  wheat  on  each  side,  like  tents  walking, 
passed  in  their  leisurely  way  to  the  open-air 
thrashing  floors,  where  donkeys,  running 
round  and  round,  stamped  the  grain  from  its 
outer  husks.  Later,  when  the  hot  wind  was 
blowing,  men  tossed  the  wheat  into  the  air,  and 
the  chaff,  wafted  aside,  left  the  grain  to  drop 
back  on  the  thrashing  floor. 

Undoubtedly  this  was  the  method  of  har¬ 
vesting  which  prevailed  back  in  the  mist-years 
before  history  began.  However,  at  that  mo¬ 
ment,  near  a  group  of  red  roofs  and  eucalyptus 
trees  which  marked  the  presence  of  one  of  the 
new  Jewish  colonies  I  saw  a  thrashing  ma¬ 
chine!  It  seemed  to  be  a  symbol  of  the  swift 
age  of  mechanics  which  is  upon  us.  “But,”  I 
thought,  “in  spite  of  our  inventions,  the  world 
keeps  on  suffering  very  badly !  Even  where  it 
is  full  of  fine  labor-saving  devices,  man  works 
just  as  hard,  and  seems  to  be  more  discontented 
than  ever.  What’s  the  trouble?  It  cannot  be 
with  the  sciences  themselves,  for  they  stand 
ready  to  give  great  and  valuable  service.” 

Just  the  old  answer — man.  And  this  time, 
he  has  endangered  his  health  if  not  his  very 
existence  by  developing  his  engineering  and 
business  and  chemistry  far  beyond  that  part  of 


THE  TOWN 


217 


his  nature  which  should  equitably  and  wisely 
rule  those  things.  Certain  aspects  of  that 
sickness  have  been  rather  ghastly.  “Do  you 
remember/’  I  asked  myself,  “how  pleased  and 
interested  most  of  us  were  when  Gatling  found 
that  the  machine-gun  was  a  better  labor-sav¬ 
ing  device  than  the  bayonet  (although  we  did 
not  put  it  just  that  way) — and  also  a  little 
later  when  our  War  Department  hinted  at 
having  a  deadlier  poison  gas  than  Germany  ? 

“Nevertheless,  all  over  the  world,  convales¬ 
cent  man  is  slowly  drawing  away  from  a 
merely  mechanical  point  of  view.  It  is  plain 
that  mechanical  supremacy  is  not  enough 
Our  theory  of  a  world  expressed  solely  in 
terms  of  bulk  and  machinery  and  big  business 
is  exploded.  There  must  be  more  than 
that .... 

The  road  turned  to  the  right  along  a  high 
crest.  At  its  foot,  the  Sea  of  Galilee  lay  like 
a  newly  cut  turquoise  which  a  gem  cutter  has 
replaced  for  a  moment  in  its  ancient,  rugged 
matrix.  Somewhere  in  those  hills  off  to  the 
left,  a  vast  crowd  of  people  once  listened 
breathlessly  to  the  words  of  a  young  Rabbi 
who  traveled  about  in  company  with  laborers, 
and  poor  women,  and  fishermen.  Almost  at 


218  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


the  beginning  of  his  talk  he  had  said  a  strange, 
new  thing:  Blessed  are  they  that  mourn ,  for 
they  shall  he  comforted . 

That  was  a  little  hard  for  them  to  under¬ 
stand.  It  is  a  little  hard  for  us  to  under¬ 
stand  to-day.  Yet  it  serves  for  us  now  just  as 
it  did  then.  Blessed  are  they  that  mourn.  .  .  . 
Blessed  too,  is  the  world’s  deep,  wistful  ques¬ 
tioning.  And  even,  blessed  is  some  of  its 
revolt  and  pain.  F or  it  shows  beyond  the  pos¬ 
sibility  of  doubt  how  far  the  ideal  transcends 
the  things  we  know. 


BLUE  WATERS 


■% 


CHAPTER  XIX 


1 

The  town,  Tiberias,  beside  the  Sea  of  Gali¬ 
lee,  runs  down  hill  and  stops  just  in  time  at 
the  water’s  edge.  In  fact,  it  has  the  appear¬ 
ance  of  having  stepped  in  and  got  its  feet  wet, 
for  a  few  of  the  older  buildings  rise  directly 
out  of  the  water.  In  more  conventional  cities 
we  frequently  see  buildings  of  white  stone. 
Tiberias  has  a  strange,  Ethiopian  look.  The 
stones  of  its  dwellings  and  of  the  low  wall 
which  encircles  the  land  side  of  the  town  are 
black,  set  in  white  mortar. 

Its  climate  is  tropical.  The  sun  beats  down 
fiercely,  for  the  city  lies  in  the  basinlike  hol¬ 
low  of  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  five  hundred  feet 
below  ocean  level.  As  for  the  Sea  itself  it  is 
best  described  as  a  sort  of  mid-course  reservoir 
of  the  Jordan  twelve  miles  long  by  seven  wide. 
The  Jordan  flows  in  at  the  north  end,  loses 
itself  for  a  while  in  the  blue  water  of  the  lake, 
and  then,  as  though  remembering  its  business, 
flows  out  again  a  full-grown  river  at  the  south. 
Tiberias  on  the  west  shore  is  the  only  town  of 

221 


222  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 

any  size  on  the  lake.  Its  flat  roofs  are  vividly 
white;  its  interiors  and  small,  irregular  courts 
are  tinted  in  peculiar  shades  of  blue.  The 
floors  of  the  dwellings  consist  of  large,  uneven 
stones  set  in  bands  of  smooth  plaster.  Every 
Friday  the  houses  are  cleaned  and  the  plaster 
is  repainted  a  light,  clear  blue. 

The  whole  effect  is  unusual,  exotic.  It 
makes  one  think  of  Herod  Antipas,  who  in  16 
a.  d.  built  the  city  for  his  pleasure  on  the  site 
of  a  cemetery  and  peopled  it  with  riff-raff  from 
the  world's  ends,  for  none  of  the  Jews  would 
live  in  such  an  unhallowed  spot.  But  to-day 
ninety  per  cent  of  the  population  is  Hebrew. 

The  sunset  from  Tiberias,  even  on  a  cloud¬ 
less  evening,  is  a  spectacle  of  enchantment.  As 
the  hour  approaches,  the  amphitheater  of 
mountains  becomes  opalescent,  and  the  lake 
deepens  into  a  rich  robin’s-egg  blue.  Before 
it  stands  the  strange  town  with  its  high-topped 
fronded  palms,  and  walls  of  black  mosaic  set 
in  white  plaster  and  the  last  shafts  of  the  sun 
streaking  its  white  domes  with  yellow  gold. 
A  moment  of  waiting  comes.  Then,  almost 
imperceptibly,  the  foreground  hills  to  the 
north  lose  the  fire  from  their  crests  and  be¬ 
gin  to  show  the  shaded  tones  of  the  opal — blue, 


BLUE  WATERS 


223 


violet,  green — but  all  very  dusky.  South  and 
eastward  across  the  lake  the  hills  as  yet  feel 
no  shadow.  The  vanished  fire  from  the  north 
seems  to  be  concentrated  there.  They  glow 
and  smolder  in  vibrant  pink,  shot  through  with 
yellow  light  against  the  brilliant  blue  of  the 
water.  Then  the  blue  veil  which  has  enveloped 
the  north  end  of  the  lake  drifts  slowly  to  the 
south,  and  night  comes  down  over  Galilee. 

2 

At  a  small,  clean  hotel  beyond  the  south 
wall,  another  letter  from  Koren  was  waiting. 
It  was  dated  a  week  earlier  and  read : 

I  am  too  sorry  about  something  I  must  say.  Just 
as  you  come  to  Syria,  unfortunately,  I  must  go  to 
Palestine.  Perhaps  I  shall  stay  for  a  week  or  per¬ 
haps  a  month,  and  then  I  shall  go  away  to  Bagdad. 
I  have  not  spoken  with  Arovni,  but  my  youngest 
sister  speaks  with  her  sometimes,  and  she  says, 
“Koren,  Arovni  weeps  for  you/’ 

As  according  to  your  work,  I  hope  it  is  going 
well.  Write  to  me  B.  P.  450,  Haifa. 

Yours, 

Kor^n. 

I  was  frankly  disappointed.  I  not  only 
wanted  to  see  Koren  again  but  I  very  much 


224  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


wished  to  see  Arovni  as  well.  I  wrote  to  him 
at  once  asking  if  he  could  not  arrange  with  his 
friend  Vartan,  who  lived  in  Damascus,  so  that 
I  might  at  least  catch  a  glimpse  of  Arovni. 
But  during  the  few  days  I  remained  at 
Tiberias  no  answer  came. 

3 

The  Baths  of  Tiberias  lie  a  mile  south  of  the 
town.  They  were  famous  for  curing  rheuma¬ 
tism  and  skin  diseases  long  before  the  time  of 
Herod.  To-day  people  come  from  the  far  cities 
of  Asia  Minor,  and  even  from  the  north  coast 
of  Africa,  to  benefit  from  their  hot,  saline 
waters.  The  present  miserable  condition  of 
the  baths  results  from  the  degraded,  half -alive 
administration  of  provinces  under  the  former 
Turkish  rule.  They  consist  of  two  small, 
squalid  buildings  containing  a  general  room 
and  a  few  semiprivate  pools;  all  of  which  are 
dirty  and  dismal  enough  to  give  a  visitor  with 
any  imagination  the  very  diseases  he  is  trying 
to  avoid. 

Procuring  a  bath  ticket  for  five  piastres, 
I  followed  the  servant  through  a  dim  passage 
into  a  small  chamber  which  was  enveloped  in 
warm,  moist  darkness.  Clothing  lay  all  about ; 


BLUE  WATERS 


225 


we  seemed  to  be  walking  over  innumerable 
pairs  of  shoes.  Soon  my  eyes  became  some¬ 
what  accustomed  to  the  pervading  gloom. 
Through  the  darkness  the  outlines  of  a  pool 
became  visible,  a  pool  about  the  length  of  an 
average  bath  tub  and  perhaps  a  little  wider. 
Six  tarbushes  lay  on  a  bench  beside  it.  Out  of 
the  pool  protruded  six  swarthy,  long  mustached 
heads.  As  I  looked,  the  heads  nodded  in  a 
friendly,  hospitable  manner  and  said,  “Saida!” 
which  means  “Greetings.”  I  departed. 

The  eight-piastre  bath  was  in  another  build¬ 
ing  a  hundred  yards  away.  The  pool  was  twice 
as  large  as  the  other  and  was  unoccupied  ex¬ 
cept  for  a  lone  gentleman  who  sat  on  the  edge 
preparatorjr  to  entering.  He  put  his  foot  into 
the  water  and  then  withdrew  it  quickly  with 
sharply  indrawn  breath.  At  last,  nerving  him¬ 
self,  and  wearing  the  expression  of  a  lost  soul 
in  Dante’s  most  hectic  circle,  he  lowered  his 
body  into  the  sulphurous  brine.  Shortly  after¬ 
ward  I  did  likewise.  Fellow  sufferers,  we 
grinned  at  each  other  from  opposite  ends  of 
the  tank. 

“The  man  has  just  changed  the  water,”  he 
said  in  French;  “that  is  why  it  is  so  hot.” 

“Eh  bien,  vous  parlez  f  rangais!” 


226  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


“Yes,  I  am  a  Syrian  from  Damascus.  We 
have  to  speak  French!  You  are  an  Ameri¬ 
can?”  I  said  that  I  was  and  that  I  expected 
to  go  to  Damascus  myself  in  a  few  days. 

He  laughed.  “Perhaps  the  French  will 
take  you  for  Mr.  Kryne.”  (Crane.) 

“Mr.  Kryne?” 

“Yes.  Do  you  not  know  about  him?  Sev¬ 
eral  years  ago  he  was  sent  by  the  Peace  Con¬ 
ference  to  see  what  was  the  wish  of  the  Syrian 
people  in  regard  to  a  mandate.  He  found 
that  more  than  anything  else  they  were  in 
favor  of  an  American  mandate.  What  hap¬ 
pened  to  his  report  in  the  Peace  Conference 
we  do  not  know.1  But  we  do  know  that  the 
French  were  given  the  mandate.  .  .  .  Two 
weeks  ago,  Mr.  Kryne  came  back.” 

“Did  he  come  in  an  official  way?”  I  asked. 

“No,”  said  the  gentleman,  submerging  him¬ 
self  to  his  chin,  “I  think  he  came  to  see  his 
friends.  A  thousand  people  gathered  in  front 
of  the  Victoria  Hotel  and  the  Hotel  d’Orient 
where  he  was  staying  and  gave  three  cheers 
for  a  republic.  During  the  next  day  or  two 
the  Syrian  men  had  a  parade  through  the 
streets  and  the  women  another  and  the  scliool- 


1  We  know  now. 


BLUE  WATERS 


227 


boys  another  all  favoring  a  republic.  Mr. 
Kryne  left  for  America.  Then  the  French 
began  with  their  arrests.  They  arrested  about 

two  thousand  in  all.  One  man,  Dr.  B - , 

was  sentenced  to  twenty  years  in  prison  with 
hard  labor.  Another  man  was  given  fifteen 
years,  two  others  received  ten  years,  and  many 
more  were  banished.  “Ah — these  miserable 
French!  If  we  cannot  have  a  republic  we 
want  an  American  mandate.  .  .  .” 

But  I  was  thinking  what  an  old  and  wise 
statesman  had  once  said.  “No  country  ever 
was,  or  ever  will  be,  successful  under  a  man¬ 
date. ” 

At  last  I  got  the  Syrian  gentleman  to  nego¬ 
tiate  with  the  attendant  for  a  petroleum  tin  of 
cold  water.  As  the  latter  poured  it  over  me 
the  man  from  Damascus,  still  neck-deep  in  the 
torrid  pool,  shivered  violently. 

“ Mon  DieuT  he  cried,  “you  are  murdering 
yourself !” 

“Do  you  never  use  cold  water  like  that?” 

“But  no!”  he  said,  shuddering.  “In  Syria? 
never!  It  is  barbarous.  It  is  terrible!” 

I  made  motions  to  the  servant  for  still 
another  tin  of  water.  But  in  the  meantime  I 
was  thinking  about  the  wise  old  statesman  and 


228  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


his  remark  about  mandates.  I  was  thinking 
that  probably  he  was  right. 

4 

At  the  north  end  of  the  lake,  three  hours’ 
walk  from  Tiberias,  lie  the  ruins  of  Caper¬ 
naum.  The  road  runs  for  the  most  part  along 
the  shore  of  the  lake.  It  is  a  beautiful  road, 
at  first  rising  forty  or  fifty  feet  above  the 
water,  then  dropping  into  a  small,  fertile  val¬ 
ley  filled  with  palms  and  pepper  trees.  Be¬ 
yond  the  valley  rises  a  headland;  and  on  the 
other  side  of  the  headland,  at  the  nearer  end 
of  a  green,  luxuriant  plain  bordering  the  lake, 
is  a  village  consisting  of  a  few  mud  huts  with 
reed-walled  sleeping  quarters  in  their  roofs. 
Fewer  huts  could  hardly  be  called  a  village. 
This  is  Mejdel,  the  ancient  Magdala,  and 
somewhere  near  this  spot  was  the  home  of 
Mary  Magdalene. 

The  ruins  of  Capernaum  are  surrounded  by 
a  high  wall.  Franciscan  monks  in  charge  of 
the  excavations  have  uncovered  a  building  of 
the  finest  white  marble,  which  was  undoubtedly 
used  as  a  temple  by  the  Jews  during  the  first 
years  of  the  Christian  era,  when  the  Sea  of 
Galilee  was  surrounded  by  rich  and  thriving 


BLUE  WATERS 


229 


cities.  Jesus  of  Nazareth  loved  the  cities  along 
the  north  shore  of  the  lake.  The  greater  part 
of  his  ministry  took  place  there  during  what 
was  probably  the  happiest  and  most  inspirit¬ 
ing  time  of  his  life. 

Near  by  he  sounded  that  splendid  code, 
the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  and  here  he  met  the 
Pharisees  and  was  questioned  by  them.  One 
likes  to  think  that  laughter  was  sometimes  on 
his  lips.  Even  when  his  enemies  questioned 
him  there  seems  frequently  to  have  been  a 
smile.  “.  .  .  .  If  I  by  Beelzebub  cast  out 
devils,  by  whom  do  you  cast  them  out?” 
Should  one  who  in  his  adolescence  framed 
questions  which  puzzled  the  Sanhedrin,  be 
worried  at  the  age  of  thirty  by  questions  of 
the  Sanhedrin’s  inferiors? 

There  was  tragedy  here  too.  Tragedy,  it 
seems,  greater  than  Calvary;  for  he  was  sur¬ 
rounded  by  minds  which,  except  at  rare  in¬ 
tervals,  met  his  loftiest  words  with  material 
interpretations.  “He  spoke  of  heaven,  and 
they  disputed  as  to  their  relative  places  on 
the  steps  of  his  throne.”  But  there  is  still 
another  side.  Those  fishermen,  those  laborers 
— perplexed,  obtuse,  illiterate — clung  to  him 
steadfastly  through  a  maze  of  years  in  which 


230  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


they  groped  painfully  for  understanding. 
The  reward  was  theirs.  It  was  that  fine  loy-j 
alty  and  that  capacity  for  great  love  wThich 
gave  them  the  strength  to  carry  on  alone.  J 

5 

There  were  signs  of  unusual  activity  on  a 
wide,  flat-topped  hill  above  Tiberias.  Forty 
white  tents  crowned  its  summit.  Groups  of 
sun-tanned  young  men  could  be  seen  moving 
about  on  its  sides  or  driving  heavy  wagons 
across  the  brow  of  the  hill.  At  night  they 
brought  their  horses  down  to  the  lake  and  rode 
them  into  the  blue  water  with  the  buoyancy 
of  lads  at  play.  I  walked  up  the  hillside  one 
evening  to  see  what  all  the  commotion  was 
about.  No  wonder  they  were  buoyant;  they 
were  building  a  city!  Its  trace  ran  up  the 
hillside  square  after  square,  some  streets 
marked  only  by  the  first  plowing,  others  half 
finished,  still  others  with  curbs  and  paving  in 
place.  A  five  inch  pipe-line  ran  over  the  top 
of  the  hill  from  the  lake.  (On  walking  to 
Capernaum,  I  had  already  noticed  a  pumping 
station  which  was  being  installed  on  the  shore 
below.)  The  far  corner  of  the  hill  was  prac¬ 
tically  built  of  stone — basaltic  rock  that  had 


BLUE  WATERS 


231 


been  dug  up  and  blasted  out  to  make  way  for 
the  streets.  Here  and  there  a  rough  founda¬ 
tion  had  been  started,  and  beside  several  piles 
of  rugged  building  blocks,  beds  of  newly 
mixed  lime  were  smoking. 

In  front  of  one  of  the  new  foundations  I 
saw  the  figure  of  a  man.  His  back  was  toward 
me,  but  there  was  something  familiar  about 
the  rotund  brown  suit  and  the  apologetic  way 
of  standing. 

“Mischa  Yucovitch,”  I  said,  “give  an  ac¬ 
count  of  yourself!” 

His  first  surprise  over,  he  shook  my  hand 
very  gravely,  but  there  was  a  sparkle  in  his 
eye.  “Well — what  do  you  think  of  it?”  he 
asked. 

I  answered:  “It  looks  very  fine.  Tell  me 
about  it.” 

“That’s  my  place  there,”  he  said,  pointing 
to  a  foundation  in  front  of  him.  “It’s  started 
already.”  Then  he  told  me  that  when  he  first 
left  Jerusalem  he  had  gone  to  Jaffa  and  Tel- 
Aviv'  and  Safed'  and  other  Jewish  colonies. 
They  had  not  quite  suited  him,  but  he  kept  on 
and  at  last  came  to  Tiberias,  where  he  found 
a  section  of  the  Palestine  Labor  Corps  at 
work  on  a  new  town.  The  first  thing  that  the 


232  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


place  would  need  was  a  general  store.  Ar¬ 
rangements  had  been  made  and  the  building, 
as  I  could  see,  was  already  begun.  4 ‘This  just 
suits  me,”  he  said.  “Look  at  the  fine  view  you 
get;  and  think  of  all  the  people  who  will  be 
here  some  day.” 

“Do  you  live  up  there  in  those  tents?”  I  in¬ 
quired. 

“No,  I  am  with  some  friends  in  the  town. 
The  tents  belong  to  the  Labor  Corps — fine 
young  fellows,  and  girls  too.  There  are  about 
a  hundred  and  fifty  of  them  here.  They  live 
four  in  each  tent  and  do  every  kind  of  work, 
engineering,  digging,  building,  all  alike.  The 
girls  live  the  same  way,  four  in  a  tent.  Some 
of  them  cook,  others  do  the  washing,  others  the 
sewing.  They  change  off  every  day  to  even 
it  up.” 

“But  what  compensation  do  they  get?” 

“Those  young  fellows  and  girls?”  His  voice 
became  a  little  unsteady  and  he  coughed 
gruffly.  “What  do  they  get?  Nothing!  They 
just  make  enough  to  eat  and  to  buy  a  few 
clothes.  They’re  wonderful!  They  come  from 
the  universities  and  schools  all  over  Europe, 
and  from  the  best  Jewish  families  in  Russia 
and  Poland — young  doctors  and  students  and 


Jttost  of  the  sheep  in  Palestine  and  Syria  are  of  the  “fat-tailed” 
variety.  This  accumulation  of  adipose  tissue  is  to  a  sheep  what  a 
hump  is  to  a  camel.  If  necessary  he  can  use  it  as  food. 


BLUE  WATERS 


233 


writers.  .  .  .  And  now  they  work  with  their 
hands  almost  for  nothing. 

4 'At  first  I  did  not  understand  it  myself.  I 
was  talking  with  one  young  man  and  asked 
him,  'Why  are  you  really  doing  this  work?’ 
And  he  said,  ‘For  the  next  generation.’  Then 
I  asked  him  if  he  was  married  (because  you 
can  easy  enough  understand  a  man  working 
for  his  children).  He  said,  'No,  I’m  not  mar¬ 
ried.  But  that  does  not  matter.  This  work 
is  for  everybody  .  .  .’  What  do  you  think 
of  that!”  added  Mischa  Yucovitch,  and  he 
smote  me  hard  upon  the  back,  the  way  a  Jew 
seldom  does,  to  hide  his  emotion. 

6 

"Do  you  want  to  see  the  plans?  Come  on!” 
We  went  up  the  hill.  A  group  of  young  men 
sat  at  one  end  of  a  long  mess-tent,  busy  over 
a  pile  of  blue  prints.  They  were  bronzed  and 
clean — clean  with  a  cleanliness  unknown  to 
the  natives  of  Palestine.  It  was  the  cleanliness 
of  men  who,  at  the  end  of  a  day  of  hard  labor, 
have  had  the  manhood  to  scrub  off  the  vestiges 
of  that  labor.  They  wore  freshly  washed 
white  shirts  with  collars  open,  showing  the 
deep-ruddy  bronze  of  their  muscular  necks. 


234  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


We  looked  at  the  plans.  They  had  been 
drawn  by  skilled  engineers.  Then  Mischa 
Yucovitch  showed  me  the  fine  points — the  dis¬ 
tribution  of  water,  the  lighting  system,  the  ar¬ 
rangement  for  beautifying  the  hillsides  with 
fast  growing  eucalyptus  trees. 

“What  is  the  name  of  the  town?” 

“Hused-Bait,”  he  said.  “That  means — well 
— it’s  kind  of  hard  to  explain  in  English.  It 
means  that  each  one  will  have  his  own 
house.  ...” 

He  wished  to  remain  for  a  while  with  the 
builders;  so  I  bade  them  all  Lebe  wohl  and 
walked  toward  the  city.  Halfway  down  the 
hillside  I  stopped  to  look  at  the  night  resting 
so  beautifully  over  the  Galilee  hills;  and  as  I 
stood  there,  from  the  row  of  tents  far  up  the 
slope  came  the  spirited,  swinging  voices  of 
young  men,  singing  one  of  the  bravest  songs 
in  the  world : 

“ Toreador ,  en  gard-e;  toreador — toreador .  .  .  .” 

Their  beast  is  not  the  toreador’s  beast  of  the 
sanded  ring,  nor  Ibanez’  ten-thousand-headed 
human  beast  who  frequents  that  ring,  nor  yet 
the  Arabs  who  will  at  first  oppose  them  as  they 
have  opposed  all  progress.  Their  beast  is  the 


BLUE  WATERS 


235 


land — the  parched,  rocky  soil  of  the  country. 
But  it  is  only  a  beast,  while  they  are  men. 
Then,  as  I  stood  on  the  hill’s  side,  something 
of  the  wonder  of  the  founding  of  new  cities 
came  to  me,  and  I  thought  of  the  Iliad,  and 
battling  with  the  elements  under  the  open  sky, 
and  valor,  and  wide  spaces. 

And  so  God  rest  you,  Mischa  Yucovitch, 
struggling  up  through  unwilling  flesh  toward 
an  ideal.  And  these  courageous  young  men 
and  women — God  rest  them  too;  and  all  men 
who  are  honestly  trying  to  build  where  there 
was  desert  before. 


7 

A  day  later  I  took  a  boat  from  Tiberias 
across  the  lake  to  the  little  railroad  village  of 
Samak.  An  hour  beyond  Samak  the  train, 
crawling  by  unexpected  curves  up  and  up  past 
high  waterfalls  and  rugged  gorges,  crossed  the 
Syrian  frontier. 


KOREN  AND 


CHAPTER  XX 


1 

At  the  top  of  one  of  the  pages  of  a  recent 
volume  on  Syria,  half  a  sentence  appears,  car¬ 
ried  over  from  the  preceding  page.  That  half 
sentence  standing  alone  does  not  express  quite 
what  the  writer  intended,  but  it  has  taken  on  a 
new  and  colorful  meaning.  “.  .  .  Damascus 
was  old  when  it  was  built  and  still  flourishes 
long  after  it  has  perished.” 

And  that  seems  to  be  exactly  the  case! 
There  is  little  reason  to  doubt  that  the  broad 
oasis  of  Damascus  was  a  camping-place  for 
innumerable  tribes  centuries  before  the  first 
permanent  buildings  were  erected.  Certainly, 
it  has  died  several  tragic  deaths  since  Tiglath- 
Pileser  the  First,  he  of  the  heavily  braided 
beard,  carried  its  best  citizens  to  comparatively 
far-away  Assyria.  Damascus  has  been  wooed 
and  won  by  Thebes,  Babylon,  Antioch,  and 
Nineveh  (to  say  nothing  of  many  minor  con¬ 
quests  and  conquerors).  But  in  spite  of  their 
cave-man  tactics,  where  are  they  now?  Damas¬ 
cus  alone  remains.  Not  a  decade  less  than 

239 


240  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


forty  centuries,  she  still  thrills  with  youthful 
activity. 

At  intervals  throughout  the  ages,  like  Rider 
Haggard’s  Ayesha ,  she  seems  to  have  found 
new  fire,  new  vitality  somewhere.  And,  like 
the  dead  sailors  in  the  “Ancient  Mariner,” 
she  goes  through  all  the  old  motions  with  more 
vigor  than  before.  Of  all  the  old-time  cities 
of  the  Mediterranean,  she  alone  has  drunk  of 
the  elixir  of  life,  but  in  her  case  that  elusive 
prescription  is  not  a  mystery.  It  is  the  crystal 
water  of  the  Barada  River,  which  bursts  clear 
and  cold  from  the  Anti-Lebanons,  gives  life  to 
a  magnificent  oasis,  and  then  having  completed 
its  work,  dies  away  in  a  silent  marsh  at  the  edge 
of  the  desert. 

A  fine,  broad  city  this,  of  flashing  sunlight 
and  bazaars  and  minarets  on  a  wide  plain  be¬ 
tween  high  mountains.  Swift  streams  flow 
under  charming  bridges  down  the  central 
esplanade.  Brimming  fountains  are  every¬ 
where.  Here  are  the  colors,  the  contrasts,  the 
excitements  which  might  well  be  expected  of 
just  such  a  great  trade  metropolis  lying  be¬ 
tween  civilization  and  the  highways  of  the 
desert. 

The  Great  Mosque  rises  out  of  the  heart  of 


KOREN  AND 


241 


the  city.  From  the  earliest  days,  its  site  has 
been  the  chief  religious  center.  A  temple  to 
an  unknown  eastern  deity  stood  here,  followed 
by  at  least  two  Roman  temples,  the  second  of 
which  was  converted  into  a  Christian  church 
by  Theodosius  in  385  a.  d.  From  that  time 
Christians  controlled  the  city  for  three  hun¬ 
dred  years.  Then  came  Islam,  armed  to  the 
teeth,  as  it  is  to-day.  On  a  feast  night,  when 
the  garrison  had  relaxed  its  vigilance,  Kalid,  a 
famous  Arab  commander,  scaled  the  eastern 
wall  with  a  rope  ladder  and  opened  the  east 
gate  to  his  men,  who  at  once  began  to  pillage 
the  city.  The  Damascenes,  perceiving  that 
they  were  lost,  immediately  surrendered, 
throwing  open  the  remaining  gates  to  the  other 
Arab  generals.  The  latter,  on  entering,  met 
the  troops  of  Kalid  pillaging  from  the  east 
gate. 

At  the  ensuing  peace  conference,  which 
seems  to  have  been  a  fairly  equitable-minded 
gathering( !),  the  Arabs  decided  that  half  the 
city  had  been  conquered  and  that  half  had  sur¬ 
rendered;  in  consequence  of  which  the  Chris¬ 
tians  were  allowed  to  continue  their  worship  in 
the  west  half  of  the  church,  while  the  Moslems 
used  the  east  half.  Christians  and  Moslems 


242  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


entered  by  the  same  temple  gate  for  nearly  a 
hundred  years. 

It  is  said  that  the  head  of  John  the  Baptist 
rests  within  the  ornate  sepulchre  in  the  center 
of  the  vast  basilica.  The  mosque  also  abounds 
in  legends  of  the  great  warrior,  Saladin,  whose 
tomb  stands  in  a  small  garden  a  few  paces  to 
the  north.  In  1898  the  German  Emperor, 
William  II,  left  a  wreath  upon  that  tomb — a 
symbol,  perhaps,  of  his  affection  for  Moslem 
military  power.  But  in  1918  the  Allies  ar¬ 
rived  in  Damascus  and  removed  the  wreath. 
A  little  later  in  the  same  year  they  removed 
the  emperor. 

2 

The  breakfast  room  of  the  Damascus  Palace 
Hotel  was  almost  empty.  Besides  myself 
there  was  only  one  other  guest — a  tall,  com¬ 
manding  man  of  middle  age,  plainly  an 
American.  He  too  had  come  from  Tiberias. 
In  the  station  at  Samak  I  had  noticed  him 
sitting  beside  a  lady  and  reading  from  a  large 
red  book,  pausing  occasionally  to  tell  her 
something  in  a  firm  voice  about  the  Piets  being 
driven  out  of  England.  Once  he  had  risen, 
and,  addressing  me  in  a  courtly  manner,  re¬ 
quested  a  light  for  his  cigar. 


KOREN  AND— 


243 


Now  he  sat  alone  at  breakfast,  tall  and  com¬ 
manding  as  before,  and,  with  one  exception, 
well  groomed.  At  the  Ritz  or  the  Plaza  or  the 
Biltmore,  or  even  at  some  of  the  less  preten¬ 
tious  hostelries,  that  exception  would  have  at¬ 
tracted  considerable  attention  if  not  comment. 
He  had  nothing  on  his  feet,  at  least,  nothing  in 
the  way  of  footgear.  His  pedal  extremities 
were  covered  with  white  powder.  Immediately 
I  knew  what  his  trouble  was,  and  sympathy 
bade  me  speak. 

“Good  morning,”  I  said. 

“Good  morning,  good  morning,”  he  an¬ 
swered,  genially.  “Let  me  see,  haven’t  we  met 
somewhere?” 

“Only  in  the  station  at  Samak  yesterday.” 

“Ah,  yes.  By  the  way,  did  you  find  the 
mosquitoes  bad  in  Tiberias? 

Bad!  Although  I  have  not  mentioned  it 
before  (not  wishing  an  anti-climax  after  the 
affair  of  the  horse-equipment  boudoir  in  the 
Jericho  highlands)  there  was  not  one  half  of 
one  square  inch  of  hands  or  feet  that  had  not 
been  punctured  in  Tiberias.  This  time  it  was 
a  mosquito,  a  most  pestilential  mosquito,  one 
third  the  size  of  the  garden  variety,  but  at  least 
three  times  as  energetic.  It  lit,  assassinated 


244  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


you  and  was  away  again  before  you  knew  it, 
leaving  a  tickle  that  beggars  description.  The 
Scotch  doctor  in  Tiberias  smiled  the  whimsical 
smile  of  all  doctors  who  have  seen  their  thou¬ 
sandth  case  of  some  such  humorous  ailment, 
prescribed  a  soothing  lotion,  and  sent  me  on 
my  way  rejoicing. 

I  now  recounted  all  these  things  to  my  tall 
fellow  citizen,  adding  that  if  he  wished,  I 
would  be  glad  to  lend  him  the  balm  for  his  own 
use;  upon  which  he  replied  that  I  could  not 
bring  it  too  quickly. 

“By  the  way,”  he  added  when  I  returned, 
“do  you  know  who  I  am?” 

“No,  I  do  not.” 

“Well — I’m  *  *  *  *  *  *  who  was  nomi¬ 
nated  at  the  last  election  for  President  on  the 
*  *  *  *  *  ticket.  Several  of  the  party 
have  come  over  here  to  study  farm  condi¬ 
tions  all  over  the  world.  And  I  don’t  mind 
saying  frankly  that  at  the  next  election  we  are 
going  to  have  a  platform  beyond  criticism . 
Dudley  Field  Malone  went  to  Paris  to  study 
the  economic  situation.  I  have  been  in  Den¬ 
mark  most  of  the  time  where  the  farms  are  run 
on  a  splendid  system.  Do  you  know  how  much 
return  the  American  farmer  gets  on  the  value 


KOREN  AND—  245 

of  his  products?  Thirty-six  and  one  half  per 
cent,  sir.  Do  you  know  how  much  the  Danish 
farmer  gets  on  his  ?  Seventy — two — and — -one 
— half — per — cent !” 

Huri' ah!  Hurrah!  I  could  almost  hear  the 
automobile  horns  and  the  wry-necked  fifes 
and  the  cheering.  But  it  was  necessary  to 
restrain  the  prophetic  ear  and  remark  that 
there  was  certainly  a  terrific  discrepancy  be¬ 
tween  the  two  percentages. 

‘‘There  is,”  he  said  with  conviction,  “there  is. 
And  now  I  think  I  will  go  upstairs  and  put  on 
some  of  your  lotion.  My  secretary  and  I  are 
leaving  for  Russia  this  afternoon,  and  if  you 
do  not  object,  I’ll  take  this  bottle  right  along 
with  me.  I  don’t  suppose  that  you  will  need  it 
again.” 

“N-no;  no  indeed.  Take  it  right  along.” 

But  some  day  when  a  new  President  is  sit¬ 
ting  at  his  desk  in  the  White  House,  haply  a 
stranger  may  come  to  him  and  say,  “Your  Ex¬ 
cellency,  do  you  remember  me?”  And  after 
the  manner  of  Presidents,  he  will  answer,  “As 
Chief  Executive  of  this  mighty  republic,  I  can¬ 
not — in  the  existing  circumstances — truthfully 
say  that  I  do.” 


246  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


Then  the  other  will  reply,  “Once  at  Damas¬ 
cus,  in  the  Damascus  Palace  Hotel,  I  gave 
your  Excellency  some  valuable  assistance  rela¬ 
tive  to  — ” 

“Ah  yes,”  I  hope  he  will  answer  quickly; 
“what,  in  the  course  of  human  events,  can  I 
do  for  you?” 

“Nothing,  your  Excellency,  nothing.  But 
as  I  was  passing  the  White  House  it  occurred 
to  me — just  what  are  the  qualifications  for  a 
first  class  Secretary  of  State?” 

3 

From  the  French  point  of  view,  Damascus 
was  far  from  being  in  a  normal  condition.  Its 
inhabitants  had  been  thinking  too  hard  and 
too  recently  about  a  republic,  in  consequence 
of  which  there  were  not  less  than  a  thousand 
native  police  spies  in  the  city.  These  gentle¬ 
men,  while  very  polite,  were  extremely  inter¬ 
ested  in  Americans.  Particularly  they  seemed 
to  be  interested  in  any  American  who  went 
about  sketching.  At  last  I  went  to  the  French 
Commissioner  of  Police  and,  with  no  difficulty 
at  all,  secured  permission  to  sketch  anywhere 
in  Damascus. 

Between  the  Moslem  and  Jewish  quarters 


KGREN  AND 


247 


there  was  a  desolate  area  of  tumble-down 
houses  and  decrepit  walls.  The  place  appeared 
to  be  deserted — an  excellent  sketching  ground. 
From  a  certain  spot  in  this  devastation  the 
Great  Mosque  was  visible.  I  came  early  one 
morning,  set  up  my  sketching  easel,  and 
started  to  work.  Alas,  as  usual,  the  desertion 
and  desolation  were  only  temporary.  Three 
minutes  had  not  elapsed  before  I  heard  sounds 
of  approach  to  the  rear.  I  looked  around. 
Standing  in  back  of  me,  in  that  ruined,  savage 
place  choked  with  sections  of  fallen  wall  and 
mortar,  were  three  handsome,  lithe,  dark-eyed 
young  ladies.  Their  black,  glassy  hair  was 
neatly  arranged  after  the  European  manner; 
they  wore  high  heeled  shoes  of  black  satin  and 
stockings  of  silk;  and  they  were  clad  in  the 
most  delicate  of  lingerie.  Their  manner  was 
modest  and  agreeable.  Indeed  they  might 
have  been  taken  from  the  advertising  pages  of 
the  Boston  Transcript  or  the  New  York 
Evening  Post.  Nevertheless,  almost  any 
traveler  would  have  felt  a  certain  naive  sur¬ 
prise  at  meeting  such  a  sophisticated  mirage 
at  the  very  edge  of  the  desert !  As  I  turned, 
they  raised  such  veils  or  scarfs  as  they  carried 
and  covered  the  lower  part  of  their  faces! 


248  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


Mohammedan  ladies?  Impossible!  All  I  had 
ever  seen  had  been  enveloped  from  head  to 
foot  in  their  garments,  like  so  many  silk- worms 
in  cocoons. 

I  continued  with  my  work.  Two  or  three 
little  boys  appeared  out  of  nowhere  and 
watched  my  progress.  A  gendarme  came  up 
and  glued  his  eyes  to  the  canvas.  The  three 
ladies  came  nearer.  No  one  noticed  them  at 
all.  Then  a  stout  Arab  woman  in  the  long, 
conventional  black  cape  arrived,  and  an  aged 
Jew  with  ear  locks  and  a  round  skull  cap  edged 
with  fur.  He  sat  down  on  a  stone  beside  me. 

“Englees?”  he  asked. 

“No.  American.” 

“American?  Ah!  Plenty  rich!  I  am  from 
Jerusalem.  Just  now,  live  there ”  and  he 
pointed  to  a  nearby  alley.  At  that  moment 
the  rhythmic  tum-tum-tum  of  Arab  music 
came  from  one  of  the  ruined  houses  which  I 
had  thought  unoccupied. 

“Pretty  soon,  Arab  marriage,”  said  the  an¬ 
cient  man.  The  wedding,  it  seemed,  was  to 
take  place  late  that  afternoon.  The  three 
young  ladies  were  sisters  of  the  bride.  They 
wanted  to  see  what  I  was  doing,  so  they  had 
come  right  out.  And  what  was  more,  after  they 


KOREN  AND— 


249 


had  seen,  they  lingered,  strolling  here  and 
there  in  their  high-heeled  evening  slippers  with 
the  greatest  sense  of  dignified  decorum.  But 
— Mohammedan  ladies!  The  thing  was  still 
impossible ! 

“Those  are  very  nice  young  lady,”  said  the 
courtly,  aged  man  beside  me.  “All  dressed  up. 
First  time  wear  Englees  clothes.”  And  then 
I  understood.  They  simply  did  not  know  how 
many  articles  made  a  complete  set !  It  was  a 
warm  day.  They  left  off  the  outer  garments 
of  their  new  costumes  as  naturally  as  a  Turk¬ 
ish  gentleman  leaves  off  his  collar.  (If  he  hap¬ 
pens  to  be  wearing  a  pearl-backed  collar-but¬ 
ton,  he  frequently  makes  up  for  his  deficiency 
by  turning  it  inside  out. ) 

And  so  they  walked  naively  about  and  the 
little  boys  romped  and  kicked  up  the  dust  over 
me  and  the  neighbors  and  early  wedding 
guests  came  and  went  and  crowded  against  my 
elbow  and  crowded  away  again  to  the  sounl 
of  sinuous  Arabian  music. 

“How  long  does  the  wedding  last?”  I  finally 
inquired  of  the  aged  man. 

“Three  days,”  he  said.  “You  stay?” 

“No,”  I  answered,  “I  go.”'  Then  I  bade 
him  shalong ,  and  the  others  ma-salam,  and  re- 


250  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


turned  rather  gloomily  with  my  unfinished 
drawing  toward  the  hotel.  The  day  was  un¬ 
usually  hot.  At  the  broad  esplanade  of  the 
Serai  I  sat  down  before  a  coffee-house  and 
ordered  glace .  Then  as  I  rose  to  depart  an 
incident  occurred  which,  in  fiction,  might  tend 
to  show  a  decided  lack  of  invention  on  the 
part  of  the  writer,  but  which  in  life  itself  shows 
only  a  kindly  and  generous  sense  of  indulgence 
on  the  part  of  the  world  in  which  we  live. 

Along  the  street  came  Koren. 


CHAPTER  XXI 


1 

We  greeted  each  other  like  the  parents  of 
long-lost  prodigal  sons. 

“Koren — how  long  have  you  been  in 
Damascus?” 

“Since  yesterday — after  a  week  at  Bey  rout. 
And  you?” 

“Since  the  day  before,  from  Tiberias.  Then 
you  did  not  get  the  letter  I  sent  to  Haifa.” 

“No.  But  we  could  not  have  done  better  if 
it  were  arranged.” 

“I  thought  you  were  going  to  Palestine!” 

“Yes.  At  the  fabrique  they  wished  me  to 
go.  But  I  said  no,  I  must  remain  in  the  north. 
Just  now  there  is  work  to  do  here.  .  .  .  My 
family  is  in  a  village  not  far  away.  .  .  .  The 
weather  is  good.  .  .  .  There  are  many  rea¬ 
sons.  .  .  .” 

Arovni.  I  could  see  that  plainly  enough. 
We  sat  down  in  front  of  the  coffee-house  and 
talked  of  other  things.  But  after  a  while  he 
became  silent  and  began  playing  with  his 
sherbet.  Then  presently  he  spoke : 

251 


252  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


2 

“When  I  left  you  in  Jerusalem  I  came  here 
to  Damascus  to  the  wedding  of  one  of  my 
younger  sisters.  They  did  not  expect  me.  I 
thought  I  would  go  directly  to  the  house  where 
the  wedding  would  take  place ;  then  they  could 
not  stop  me  from  seeing  Arovni.  But  when  I 
came  to  the  city  I  could  not.  I  could  not  go 
there  against  my  family.  In  some  manner  my 
brother  heard  that  I  was  in  Damascus.  He 
took  a  cab  and  was  searching  for  me  and  after 
an  hour  he  came  to  the  coffee-house. 

“  4  Why  do  you  not  come  to  the  wedding?’ 
he  asked.  Then,  since  he  had  said  it,  I  went. 
She  was  there.  I  saw  her  but  did  not  speak 
to  her.  She  was  forbidden  to  dance,  for,  first 
of  all,  she  would  dance  with  me.  I  have  not 
seen  her  since  then,  but  my  youngest  sister,  as 
I  wrote  to  you,  talked  between  us.” 

He  flung  out  his  arms  in  a  gesture  of  appeal. 

“I  wish  I  could  express  those  things  which 
Arovni  has  said.  They  were  so  poetic,  so 
beautiful — 

“  T  have  no  one  here  to  speak  to,’  she  said  to 
my  sister.  ‘Let  me  sit  for  a  little  time  beside 
you  that  I  may  tell  my  true  feelings  to  some 
one,  for  I  am  alone.  .  .  I  pray,’  she  said. 


KOREN  AND 


253 


weeping  very  much,  "that  Koren  will  marry  a 
girl  who  will  be  more  beautiful  than  I  and 
more  educated  and  who  is  free.  It  does  not 
matter  for  me.  I  am  only  a  girl.  But  oh, 
why  is  he  always  grieving  himself  about  me — .’ 

“But  my  youngest  sister  said,  ‘Arovni,  he 
loves  you.’  Then  she  changed  quickly  as  a  girl 
will  and  still  weeping  said,  ‘Oh  Koren,  Koren 
my  dear — I  know  that  if  I  shall  not  marry 
you,  I  shall  never  marry  anyone  else,  and  I 
will  be  loving  you  to  the  end  of  my  life, 
whether  it  is  coming  to-morrow  or  after  many 
years.  .  .  .’  Then  at  last  she  dried  her  tears 
and  said,  ‘Tell  him  that  he  has  people  to  talk 
to  and  can  tell  his  feelings.  I  must  stay  here 
where  I  have  no  one.  If  I  can  be  patient,  he 
can  be  patient.  We  must  wait.  .  .  ” 

Koren  stopped  speaking  and  began  toying 
with  his  sherbet  again. 

“That  is  good  advice,  Koren,”  I  remarked, 
rather  lamely. 

“Yes,  almost  always  one  can  wait,”  he  an¬ 
swered.  “But  just  sometimes  I  am  afraid. 
I  believe  in  Arovni.  But  a  girl  is  not  as  strong 
as  a  man.  Perhaps  when  I  am  away  in  Bag¬ 
dad,  they  will  bring  some  rich,  handsome  fel¬ 
low  well  known  to  the  family  and  say,  This 


254  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


is  the  one  you  are  to  marry.’  And  then,  be¬ 
cause  she  will  not  disobey  her  parents — ” 

We  left  the  coffee-house,  walked  down  the 
busy  Souk-el-Kharratin ,  and  then  turned  into 
the  rue  Droite — that  street  which  for  count¬ 
less  years  has  been  called  Straight.  Near  by, 
in  the  shops  of  the  rug  merchants,  shimmered 
the  deep,  mellowT  crimsons  of  Bokhara,  the 
lavish  patterns  and  bright  colors  of  the  Cau¬ 
casus,  and  the  rich  reds  and  blues  of  Samar¬ 
kand.  All  about  us  seethed  the  exotic.  Oriental 
commerce  of  the  bazaars.  Suddenly  Koren 
stopped  and  said,  “Would  you  then,  still  care 
to  see  Arovni?” 

Would  I!  But  how — 

“At  this  time  in  the  afternoon,  she  is  often 
at  her  window  sewing.  Sometimes  I  can  see 
her  from  a  corner  where  two  houses  meet.  It 
is  very  quiet  there.  One  must  be  careful.  If 
they  should  see  me,  then  they  would  be  sure  to 
give  her  a  room  inside  on  the  court  where  I 
could  not  come.  You  will  recognize  her,”  he 
added;  “for  she  always  wears  black.  She 
knows  that  I  like  black  too  much.” 

We  turned  into  a  narrow,  high-walled  lane 
which  was  half  hidden  from  the  sky  by  the 
projecting  upper  stories  of  the  houses  on  each 


KOREN  AND— 


2  55 


side.  At  the  first  turn  to  the  left  Koren 
motioned  me  to  wait,  and  went  forward  to  an 
angle  where  one  house  extended  beyond 
another. 

“Come/’  he  whispered.  I  went  forward  to 
his  side. 

3 

Arovni.  More  lovely  even,  then  I  had  ex¬ 
pected.  She  was  sitting  at  a  window  about 
twenty  yards  away,  turned  so  that  the  light 
would  fall  on  her  brightly  colored  sewing. 
Her  profile,  delicate  as  a  dryad’s  yet  womanly, 
framed  itself  against  the  deep  background  of 
the  window  like  a  chaste  “portrait  of  a  young 
girl”  by  some  old,  clear-eyed  Florentine  mas¬ 
ter.  The  dark,  slightly  waving  hair  was 
tightly  bound  in  simple  coils  about  her  head, 
making  that  indescribable,  open  curve  at  the 
back  where  it  rose  cleanly  up  from  the  white 
column  of  her  neck. 

A  pigeon  fluttered  down  on  the  opposite 
roof.  Arovni  turned.  Her  eyes  were  large, 
lustrous,  ever  so  slightly  tipped  at  the  outer 
corners,  and  veiled  with  deep  lashes.  The  bird 
walked  along  the  roof  in  its  foolish,  pigeon- 
toed  manner,  preened  itself,  and  then  flew 


256  HILLTOPS  IN  GALILEE 


away.  She  followed  it  a  moment  with  her  eyes, 
then  turned  back  to  her  work.  .  .  . 

“I  pray  that  he  will  marry  a  girl  who  is 
more  beautiful  than  I  and  more  educated  than 
I  and  who  is  free.  .  . 

Free! 

“Look  here,  Koren,”  I  said,  as  we  stepped 
back  into  the  hollow  of  the  wall,  “it  seems  to 
me  that  the  ancient  tribal  law  about  not  being 
able  to  marry  your  sister-in-law’s  sister  is 
based  on  a  serious  error.  No  doubt  the  old- 
time  chieftain  who  made  that  law  thought  he 
was  doing  right  but  did  not  have  the  slightest 
knowledge  of  biology  or  eugenics.  Ancient 
taboos  of  that  kind  are  being  better  understood 
all  over  the  world.  The  time  comes  when  it  is 
better  for  the  world  if  they  are  broken. 

“After  six  months  in  the  United  States,  you 
would  speak  English  almost  perfectly.  With 
English,  Armenian,  Turkish,  and  French,  you 
would  be  assured  of  work.  I  have  a  small 
apartment  in  a  place  called  Washington 
Square  in  New  York  City.  It  is  not  very 
handsome,  but  it  has  three  rooms  and  a  sort  of 
kitchen.  If  you  and  Arovni  want  to  make  a 
new  beginning  away  from  all  this — why  not 
begin  there?” 


KOREN  AND 


257 


Koren  took  my  hand.  “X  cannot  say  how 
much  X  thank  you,”  he  said.  But  X  saw  by 
his  eyes  that  he  would  not  accept. 

“When  you  say  these  things,”  he  continued, 
“which  for  you  X  know  are  right,  X  am  much 
tempted  to  do  as  you  say.  But  just  in  those 
moments,  I  remember  most  strongly  the  love 
of  my  family.  You,  X  think,  cannot  quite 
understand.  How  can  I  make  them  suffer 
some  more?  X  can  only  tell  them  again  and 
again  what  I  believe,  and  some  day  they  too 
must  change  as  the  world  is  changing.  Until 
then,  we  must  wait.  Arovni  says  that  too.  We 
must  wait.  .  .  .” 

He  gripped  my  hand,  and  then  we  turned 
and  went  into  the  city. 


IN  CONCLUSION 


Time  after  time,  as  I  have  been  thinking 
about  the  ominous,  semi-threatening  outlook  of 
the  world  to-day,  a  spirited  poem  by  Gilbert 
Chesterton  has  come  to  my  mind.  It  is  a  poem 
about  Alfred,  King  of  England,  who,  sur¬ 
rounded  by  his  enemies,  goes  out  into  the  night 
and  asks  the  powers  of  good  what  thing  the 
future  holds.  When  the  answer  slowly  comes 
to  him,  it  carries  this  stirring  message:  Only 
that  the  shy  is  growing  darker  yet,  and  that  the 
sea  is  rising  higher . 

That  may  be  our  answer  too — a  ringing 
challenge !  In  spite  of  the  bitter  years  that  the 
world  has  just  known,  in  spite  of  the  probabil¬ 
ity  of  bitter  years  ahead,  it  is  for  that  very 
reason  a  finer  thing  than  ever  to  be  alive.  To 
work,  arid  love,  and  worship,  and  to  make  mis¬ 
takes — terrific  mistakes  sometimes — and  yet 
to  keep  on  gaining  through  those  mistakes, 
and  not  to  be  swamped  by  battleships  or  ma¬ 
chines  or  business  but  occasionally  to  catch  a 
glimpse  of  the  great  far  advance  all  along 

258 


IN  CONCLUSION 


259 


the  line — that  is  enough  for  the  high  courage 
of  any  man. 

These  pages  happen  to  be  about  some  of 
the  people  in  a  small  country  this  side  of  the 
Jordan  River.  What  I  have  found  among 
them  only  strengthens  my  conclusion  about  the 
rest  of  us.  F or  whether  we  live  in  Vladivostok 
or  Central  Park  West  or  on  the  Zuyder  Zee, 
we  are  all  of  us  this  side  of  Jordan. 


Date  Due 

Y 

i 

] 

fBL 

PRINTED 

IN  U.  S.  A. 

2?.}07  -3.S74 

Hilltops  in  Galilee, 

Princeton 


